Americans Jason McCartney and Christian Vandevelde and Belgian Bart Dockx were leading by seven minutes on the Wanne climb, 50 kms from the finish in Verviers, when the whole peloton turned into the wrong road and were forced to backtrack.

When they made it back to the right road, the lead of the three breakaways had risen to more than 15 minutes.

But the race jury decided to wipe out the lead the three pace setters had established while the main bunch were on the wrong route.

Despite being asked to stop, the leaders initially refused to follow orders until stewards threatened to kick them out of the race if they did not obey.

After long and animated discussions, the three finally accepted to start again with the same lead they had when the incident occurred and the stage continued.

Belgian Rik Verbrugghe was leading the week-long race at the start from Landgraaf in the morning.

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