Vuelta a San Juan: Gaviria doubles up with stage 4 victory

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Fernando Gaviria claimed his second stage win of the Vuelta a San Juan on stage 4 as the Quick-Step Floors team reverted to their opening stage approach, with Tom Boonen leading out the Colombian and Elia Viviani (Italy) finishing a helpless second.

After Wednesday's time trial, it was another day for the sprinters, and Ramunas Navardauskas, who took the overall lead in the time trial, finished safely in the bunch to keep hold of the blue jersey.

The bunch, however, played with fire. Whereas on the opening two stages the breakaway was never allowed to carve out an advantage of more than three minutes, this time a large group of 13 took out nearly six minutes on the 160km circuit-based route in San Martín.

The catch was only made in the final few kilometres as Quick-Step once again showed themselves to be the strongest team in the peloton. Boonen did plenty of work to ensure a bunch sprint would ensue, and he went on to deliver another textbook leadout for Gaviria, who did not disappoint.

Once again, Elia Viviani was the only rider to get close, though with three second places now, the Italian must be sick of seeing the back of the QuickStep jersey.

"It's difficult to know who is the fastest here," said Gaviria. "I don't know if it's me because I have the best team in world for the sprints. The team put me in the best possible position today."

How it unfolded

It was another scorching afternoon as the race headed out of the city of San Juan for the first time and out to the small village of San Martín.

After the stage 3 time trial a pan-flat 160km stage, based on a circuit, awaited, it was once again a fast and furious start to proceedings as the South American Continental-level riders slugged it out to make it into the breakaway.

There was a crash in the opening kilometres, with former Giro d'Italia champion Damiano Cunego (Nippo-Vini Fantini) forced to abandon immediately.

Eventually a break went, and it was a large one, with 13 riders in there.

They were: Alan Ramirez (Municipalidad de Rawson), Nicolás Naranjo (Virgen de Fatima), Gerardo Tivani (Municipalidad de Pocito) Pablo Anchieri (Uruguay), Francisco Montes (Asociacion Civil Mardan), Héctor Rangel (Mexico), Juan Molina (Argentina), Emiliano Ibarra (Sep-San Juan), Santiago Espíndola (Los Cascos Esco-Agropla), Edison Bravo (Chile)‬, and Ricardo Julio (Municipalidad de Pocito). They were later joined by
Leonardo Rodríguez (Asociacion Civil Mardan), and Daniel Lucero (Municipalidad de Rawson).

Tiviani took the first intermediate sprint, while Montes suffered a mechanical and would never regain contact.

On the first passage of the finish line, the gap was at 5:30 and, with such a large group, the peloton was playing a risky game. With 30km to go it was down to three minutes as the break began to fragment, and indeed the remaining escapees entered the final 5km with a gap.

But the peloton was in full flow and Quick-Step Floors were making their presence felt – and the boys in blue delivered once again.

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