Astana's Magnus Cort Nielsen wins stage 5 as the Breakaway Survives

Nielsen out-sprinted his breakaway companions to take the stage win into Lanaken

Today was the longest stage in this year’s edition of the Binck Bank Tour. The fifth stage took the peloton from Sint-Pieters-Leeuw over 204.4km to Lanaken.

On paper, it was a course that favored a bunch sprint, but that was said that about the last two stages as well!

As in previous days, the riders had to tackle three laps of a 10,3km circuit around Lanaken. 

After some kilometres of racing, four riders established the day's breakaway and built up a maximum lead of four minutes. 

With 30km to go the stage reached the local laps the four breakaway companions still has a two-minute gap over the peloton, and was likely to make it to the finish.

It was Magnus Cort Nielsen (Team Astana) who took the stage win ahead of J. Van den Berg.

VIDEO: 2018 BinckBank Tour Stage 5 Highlights

2018 BinckBank Tour Stage 5 Top 10

1 Magnus Cort (Den) Astana Pro Team 4:39:50 
2 Julius van den Berg (Ned) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale   
3 Alexis Gougeard (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale   
4 Jonas Rickaert (Bel) Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise 0:00:29 
5 Caleb Ewan (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott 0:00:33 
6 Matteo Pelucchi (Ita) Bora-Hansgrohe   
7 Florian Senechal (Fra) Quick-Step Floors   
8 Tom Devriendt (Bel) Wanty-Groupe Gobert   
9 Jens Debusschere (Bel) Lotto Soudal   
10 Matej Mohoric (Slo) Bahrain-Merida

2018 BinckBank Tour GC after Stage 5 Top 10

1 Matej Mohoric (Slo) Bahrain-Merida 16:28:51 
2 Sean De Bie (Bel) Veranda's Willems Crelan 0:00:03 
3 Stefan Küng (Swi) BMC Racing Team 0:00:22 
4 Maxime Vantomme (Bel) WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic 0:00:28 
5 Michael Matthews (Aus) Team Sunweb 0:00:30 
6 Taco van der Hoorn (Ned) Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij 0:00:32 
7 Victor Campenaerts (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:00:36 
8 Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) Team Sunweb 0:00:37 
9 Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Quick-Step Floors 0:00:41 
10 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Katusha-Alpecin