After doing so much of the heavy lifting to ensure the surprise success of the break on stage 3 of the BinckBank Tour, fourth place initially felt like a scant reward for Matej Mohoric. As the Bahrain-Merida rider wheeled to a halt in Antwerp, however, it gradually became apparent that he would receive the considerable consolation of moving into the green jersey of race leader. `I always had the general classification in the back of my mind beside the stage victory. I still focused on the stage win, but I knew it was going to be quite hard as the other guys knew I was the strongest because I pulled the most to arrive to the finish with the biggest gap possible,` Mohoric said just past the finish line on Desguinlei. Mohoric was the driving force behind the five-man break that upset the sprinters by coming in 1:11 clear of the peloton. The Slovenian attacked to pick up 9 seconds during the trio of `Golden Kilometre` bonus sprints in the finale and then kicked three more times on the run-in. Taco van der Hoorn (Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij) would ultimately clip away for the stage victory, however, and Mohoric risked coming away empty-handed when Sean De Bie (Veranda`s Willems-Crelan) pipped him to third place on the stage and the final bonus seconds.ADVERTISEMENT `In the final, I tried to go with the Roompot guy when he attacked but I couldn`t close the gap,` Mohoric said. `I thought that Sean De Bie would do a long sprint, but he decided to target me and sprint for second place afterwards, which is fine. But I think I might just still get the jersey.` Indeed, as Mohoric spoke at the finish, his Bahrain-Merida entourage were performing the mental arithmetic to establish whether he or De Bie would be called to the podium. A discreet nod from a soigneur confirmed that he would take over from Stefan Küng (BMC) atop the overall standings. Mohoric starts stage 4 with a lead of one second over De Bie, with Küng a further 21 seconds back in third. The BinckBank Tour` ...
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