Tour of Alberta: Evans claims Black Diamond stage

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Cadel Evans (BMC) won stage 4 of the Tour of Alberta Saturday from a five-man sprint after being off the front for more than 150km with the day's breakaway. Argos-Shimano's Simon Geschke finished second ahead of Belkin's Tom Jelte Slagter in third.

Garmin-Sharp's Rohan Dennis finished with the field more than nine minutes back but kept his yellow jersey heading into Sunday's final stage. Evans said the team had two objectives before the day started, and he accomplished one of them.

"The first objective today was to try and go for the stage," Evans said. "The second objective after that was to try and do something against Rohan Dennis, which we thought was probably unlikely. Me in the breakaway doesn't happen often because I'm normally on general classification and nobody lets me go anywhere. So it's been a long time since I've been in a breakaway that's gone to the finish, honestly."

The day's top three were part of a nine-rider break that formed just 18km into the 170km stage. That group whittled itself down to five riders with 35km remaining. Included in the smaller group with the top three were United Healthcare's Ben Day and the Canadian National Team's Antoine Duchesne.

Day attacked the group with 2km remaining and got a gap of five seconds, but Geschke worked hard to bring him back just 100 meters from the line. Evans played his cards perfectly, forcing Geschke to do the work to bring Day back and then jumping the Argos rider at the finish to take the win.

"I didn't know how fast Simon [Geschke] and Slagter were because I'd never been to a finish with them and wasn't sure how fast they were, but they're both Dutch so I knew they were a little bit suspect," Evans said. "I was playing a few games there and trying to put the pressure on them. Of course we want to win, but the first step toward winning is not losing, and sometimes you have to try and put that pressure on the others. And so in the end it came together, and yeah, I was a little bit lucky today."

Slagter had to settle for third in the sprint but earned back the polka dot mountains jersey for his efforts in the breakaway. Duchesne took the jersey for most aggressive rider, while Ryan Anderson kept the jersey for the best-placed Canadian. Cannondale's Peter Sagan finished with the field and kept the green sprinter's jersey.

How it happened:

The 170km stage that started and finished in Black Diamond along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains began under cloudy skies and hit riders with intermittent rain throughout. But that didn't slow down the attacking, which started at kilometer zero.

Sixteen kilometers into the day a group of five peeled off the front and quickly grew into the group of nine riders that would animate most of the stage. Included in the group were Evans, Geschke, Slagter, Day, Duchesne, Ryan Roth (Champion System), Nic Hamilton (Jelly Belly), Scott Zwizanksi (Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies) and Clay Murfet (Smart Stop-Mountain Khakis).

With Evans being the best-placed overall rider at more than 17 minutes down, Dennis' Garmin team had a perfect scenario to protect his jersey and let the breakaway roll away without resistance.

"Our plan was to get someone up the road with nobody who was on the general classification or no one even close," Dennis said. "I think we were lucky with that. And then we just controlled it from there. We knew the best-placed rider was 17 minutes, and we thought there was no need to bring it back and there was no need to try and waste any energy for a stage win or any stress with the overall. It was a perfect position for us, and that scenario was everything we asked for."

The group worked well together and built an ultimate gap of more than 11 minutes before Garmin clamped down and held the escapees' advantage near that mark for the rest of the day. The breakaway riders cooperated well with each other until the first KOM of the day 82km into the race.

That's when Slagter, who lost the KOM jersey the previous day to teammate Robert Gesink, jumped away from the group and set off to take maximum points on the climb. He was briefly brought back into the fold before he jumped away again on a rolling hill and was joined by Geschke. The seven riders behind held their cards close to their chests at the suggestion of Evans.

"Cadel just said keep them close and wait," Duchesne said. "And when we hit those rollers I saw a lot of guys seemed to be tired, so I knew those two guys were pretty strong and didn't want to let them go away, so I attacked on one those rollers."

The next loop on the route took riders over the same terrain they had covered before the first KOM, and Duchesne attacked the first chase group on another of the rolling hills after the second KOM of the day at 120km. Evans and Day soon tagged along as the other four riders fell further and further behind the leaders. The chasing trio made contact with the leaders at 135km to form the lead group of five that would ride to the finish.

Cooperation in the new lead group was good until Day made his move with 2km remaining. The 34-year-old Australian got a good gap and looked like he might hold on for the win as tactics among the four riders behind slowed the chase, but Geschke eventually took control and reeled a disappointed Day back in before the line. But the extra effort cost Geschke power for the final kick, where Evans sailed in for his first win in more than a year.

"It kind of sucks getting caught with 100 meters to go," Day said. "But I had to play my cards, and that was my card to play. But at least another Aussie won it.

"I'm a little bit pissed off that he was stealing all my Aussie support out there," Day joked in reference to Evans, the former World champion and 2011 Tour de France winner. "Nobody seems to remember who I am, but they know who Cadel is. But I saw a few Australian flags out there so it was kind of cool."

The 2013 Tour of Alberta concludes Sunday with a 130km stage from Okotoks to Calgary.

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