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Fernando Gaviria secured his first win of the season within the colors Movistar on a crash-marred run-in to Barreal, outsprinting Peter Sagan (Complete Energies) and Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) to win stage 4 on the Vuelta a San Juan.
Ganna was the primary to launch his dash from 400 metres out, attempting to catch the sprinters off guard, however Gaviria took no probabilities after Movistar set the tempo on the head of the peloton for a lot of the second half of the stage.
The Colombian shortly reacted to Ganna’s assault, latched onto the World Hour Document holder’s again wheel, after which sprinted previous him to win the stage and take the chief’s jersey.
Sagan wasn’t fairly in a position to come round Gaviria within the dash and completed in second place on the day, leaving Ganna to accept third place.
Gaviria now leads the general classification by 10 seconds forward of Sagan and 14 seconds forward of Ganna because the race heads right into a relaxation day on Thursday earlier than returning for stage 5 from Chimbas to Alto Colorado on Friday.
The way it unfolded
With temperatures once more approaching 40°C on Wednesday afternoon, the Vuelta a San Juan peloton was glad of the shelter afforded by the paddocks of the Villicum motor racing circuit earlier than they took to the open street for stage 4. The hovering temperatures have exacted a toll on the bunch this week, and earlier than the beginning, Stevie Williams (Israel Premier Tech) was the most recent rider to withdraw via sickness.
The afternoon started on a festive be aware, with world champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) serenaded on the sign-on as he celebrated his twenty third birthday. The world champion is the favorite to win this race, with Friday’s haul up the Alto Colorado anticipated to be decisive, however stage 4 had the potential for some basic classification skirmishes, and so it proved.
The primary half of the stage was basically a protracted grind as much as the summit of the Gruta Virgen de Andacollo, some 2,200 metres above sea degree. The class 1 ascent itself was comparatively light, however a climb of that size and altitude at this early level within the season was at all times prone to put the quick males underneath stress, together with race chief Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep).
If the sight of sprinters struggling to maintain tempo off the again was according to the anticipated script, the presence of Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) within the day’s early break was one thing of a deviation from the anticipated script. A day after marking the one-year anniversary of his life-threatening coaching crash, Bernal’s aggression right here was as heartening because it was stunning.
Bernal was a part of a 14-rider group that escaped on the lengthy haul via the sparse, parched Sierra de Talacasta, and at one level, the escapees constructed a bonus north of 5 minutes over the peloton. Tomas Contte (Argentina) led Juan Pablo Dotti (SEP San Juan) and Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani-CSF) over the summit of the class 1 climb, whereas Bernal himself went on the offensive over the opposite facet in a bid to breathe new impetus into the transfer.
The lengthy descent and valley that adopted favoured the diminished peloton, nonetheless, not least as a result of the remaining sprinters’ groups had been now totally conscious of the lie of the land. With Bennett and Jakobsen distanced, TotalEnergies and Movistar joined forces on the entrance on behalf of Peter Sagan and Fernando Gaviria, and their collaboration doomed Bernal and the escapees, who had been swept up with 50km or so remaining.
The class 3 climb to Calingasta didn’t create any additional separation within the 50-strong peloton, the place TotalEnergies and Movistar did greater than sufficient to make sure there can be no method again for the dropped quick males, although the lengthy, shallow drag in direction of the end city of Barreal lent itself to late attackers.
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