Renewi Tour 2026 – Stage 1 [FULL STAGE]

August 19, 2026

21st Renewi Tour 2026 🇧🇪 (2.UWT) ME – Stage 1 – Diest – Diest : 191,3 km

Renewi Tour is a UCI WorldTour stage race run over flat and rolling Benelux terrain, where wind, narrow roads, technical city finishes, and short cobbled or punchy sectors can turn an apparently controlled day into a selective one. The course often lacks major climbs, but repeated accelerations, exposed farmland roads, and fast transitions demand constant attention and strong team organization. Riders must manage crosswinds, stay near the front through roundabouts and junctions, and be ready for late positioning battles on the flatter stages. Race dynamics frequently center on sprint teams, time bonuses, and opportunistic moves on the short rises or during windy sections, while stronger classics riders look for hard racing to wear down the pure fast men. Typical stage profiles include flat openings, rolling middle sections, and technical finishes that reward both power and precision. The finishing style can range from a bunch sprint to a reduced-group contest or late breakaway, depending on how much the wind and terrain have split the field. It is a race of timing, control, and resilience.

Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) came out on top on the opening stage of the Renewi Tour, edging out Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM) in a bunch sprint at the end of a messy and sodden day of racing.

With so few sprint opportunities on offer at the Vuelta a España, the Renewi Tour has attracted a stellar list of sprinters and they were all to the fore on the opening day.

Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) bagged the final spot on the podium, just ahead of Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech), but the stage win came down to a nail-biting bike throw between Milan and Kooij.

Picnic-PostNL’s Pavel Bitter had opened the sprint after a very late catch of the breakaway, with Milan thundering down the middle of the soaked tarmac, while Kooij emerged from the slipstream and set about hauling him back.

Kooij gained and gained and almost snatched it, but, with both riders unsure which way it had gone, a photo finish would soon confirm that Milan had held on.

This was a tough opening day and not just because of the steady, heavy rain. The 191.3km route around Diest in Belgium featured five ascents of the Grasbos climb, affectionately known as ‘the Poggio of Diest’, and Milan was left scrambling on the final one as his rivals lit up the race and the peloton splintered.

When it did come back together, the day’s main five-man breakaway was still out front, and with an advantage that might well have seen them pull off an extraordinary heist, had they not started to play games with two kilometers to go.

But as it was, all the main favourites for the stage and the overall arrived to fight it out in the final kilometre.

“Tough conditions and also a tough race,” Milan said. “Big thanks to my teammates, it’s not easy to stay together to keep the focus and keep fighting but we made it.

“I was not sure about the sprint until the last second. I started with 200 metres to go, then when I was there I said ‘ok let’s try do hold it but Kooij was coming up super fast and immediately after the finish he was already in front of me so I was not sure, but I’m really happy with this victory.”

Milan moves into the leader’s jersey with a lead of four seconds over Kooij on general classification, with Dries De Bondt (Jayco-AlUla) third on the same time thanks to the bonus seconds he earned from the breakaway in the ‘green kilometre’.

How it unfolded
The opening stage of the Renewi Tour, which takes place in the Benelux region but this year almost entirely in Belgium, was a 191.3-kilometre route around Diest, with multiple laps of a finishing circuit that featured the Grasbos climb, 500 metres long at an average gradient of around 8%.

It was a fast start as the battle to form the breakaway lasted a good 25km, with five strong riders eventually getting up the road: Lionel Taminiaux (Lotto-Intermarché), Dries De Bondt (Jayco-AlUla), Timo Kielich (Visma-Lease a Bike), Carl-Frederik Bévort (Uno-X Mobility), and Quinten Hermans (Pinarello-Q36.5).

The peloton was aware of the danger and only afforded them a lead of just over two minutes – and even that was a struggle to bring back in the end. The early phase of the race was quiet enough, even though it was far from comfortable, with the riders – most of whom have raced in sunny conditions for months now – were soaked and racing through gritted teeth.

The race intensified inside the final 100km, with Lidl-Trek, Soudal-QuickStep, Alpecin-Premier Tech, and Unibet-Rose-Rockets among the most prominent teams in the peloton. They had to work hard, taking strong pulls but not making many inroads, with the break still holding 90 seconds as they crossed the finish line with 32km and two laps remaining.

That penultimate lap featured the green kilometre, with bonuses of 3-2-1 seconds for the top three at three separate sprint points within that one kilometre. De Bondt won the first and third to take six seconds in total, while Hermans won the second and was second at the first to take the next-best haul of five seconds. There were none left for the peloton and the rest of the GC hopefuls.

There was a brief scare for Tiesj Benoot (Decathlon CMA CGM) due to a puncture, and a race-ending crash for a potential GC player in Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X).

As they took the bell lap with 16km to go, the gap was inside one minute and it continued to tumble on the approach to the final ascent of the Grasbos, where the attacks flew. Red Bull lit it up through Laurence Pithie and Tim Van Dijke, before Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates) drove the attack clear, aided by a split caused by a crash from a Tudor rider going around an uphill bend in around 10th position. Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché) and a rider from Lidl-Trek completed the a five-man group as it went clear, with Milan scrambling on his own behind before slotting back into the bunch.

The peloton had split but the first portion was sizable and not far behind, and made its way back across a few kilometers later, with 6km to the line. At that point, the five men out front still had 20 seconds in hand, and they held onto that as the fragmented peloton got its bearings before launching a proper chase.

Lidl-Trek and Soudal-QuickStep took responsibility but it took a breakdown up front to really seal the deal. Just outside the 2km-to-go banner the leaders hesitated and, despite a long final pull from De Bondt – plus a futile attack from Kielich – that was game over.

A sodden peloton entered the home straight nd in this battle royale of sprinters and classics riders, the first blood went to Milan, by a whisker.

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