Pais Vasco: Primoz Roglic wins stage 4

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Primoz Roglic (LottoNl-Jumbo) claimed the fourth stage of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco Thursday, attacking from a reduced peloton with less than three kilometres to go and holding out to take the win at the line.

The Slovenian made multiple attempts to get clear as the pack neared the Bilbao finish, attacking on the final climb and the final descent before finally succeeding on the flat run-in to the line. The fast finishers in the pack settled for sprinting for second place, with Team Sunweb's Michael Matthews taking runner-up honours on the day and Bahrain Merida's Giovanni Visconti pipping Sky's Michal Kwiatkowski for third.

"There were a lot of attacks and when I sat in front, I knew this was the moment. I attacked and did everything to keep my lead," said Roglic. "I keep going full-gas until the finish. I'm speechless. I'm very happy with this victory and that it worked out today."

Quick-Step's David de la Cruz held on to the overall race lead by one second over Roglic, with the queen stage on tap for Friday.

How it unfolded

It took quite some time for the day's main breakaway to form on a stage 4 with two categorised climbs on the menu, including a second-category ascent crested 14 kilometres from the line.

A quartet of escapees only made it clear after more than an hour of racing, with Toms Skujins (Cannondale-Drapac), Maxim Belkov (Katusha-Alpecin), Jonathan Lastra (Caja Rural) and Amaël Moinard (BMC Racing) forming the move.

The breakers' advantage grew to around four minutes before it stabilised about 100 kilometres from the finish, with Quick-Step Floors leading the peloton. There was little change over the course of the ensuing 40 kilometres, before the pack began gradually reeling in the escapees just after cresting the first categorised climb, with Astana coming to the front to string out the peloton.

That brought the gap down quickly, with the break's advantage down to two minutes with 40 kilometres to go.

A pair of crashes brought down several notables in the pack over the ensuing kilometres. Steve Cummings (Dimension Data), Darwin Atapuma (BMC Racing) and Dani Navarro (Cofidis) all abandoned the race after hitting the deck hard in the second incident. Trek's Alberto Contador was caught up as well, but came away more or less unscathed.

The pileups did not stall the chase, however. The peloton had closed to within a minute with 30 kilometres to go and the gap continued to fall rapidly from there, spurring Skujins and Moinard to push clear of Belkov and Lastra. Belkov and Lastra were caught shortly after, and the two survivors out front wouldn't last long.

Moinard dropped back a few seconds later, leaving just Skuijns holding on for another two minutes before he too was mopped up.

With everything brought back together, it wasn't long before attacks began to fly from the peloton on the day's final climb. Dimension Data's Serge Pauwels opened up an advantage in the early goings of the ascent, just as Trek's Alberto Contador suffered an untimely mechanical and was forced to take a teammate's bike. The Spaniard managed to make his way back to the front of the race quickly enough, though not without ample effort on the second-category slopes.

Pauwels' attack drew out a few other climbing talents, but a lined-out peloton closed the gap before long. Then it was Nicolas Roche's turn to strike for BMC. Pauwels made an unsuccessful attempt to bridge, but a Quick-Step-led pack closed down the move a few hundred metres later. Orica-Scott's Roman Kreuziger was the next to try his luck, but he could not get much breathing room with a hard-charging Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors) driving the pace in the peloton.

Approaching the top of the climb, Roglic made a tentative attack that drew responses from several GC hopefuls, causing splits in the dwindled peloton but not quite propelling the Slovenian clear. Roglic tried to solo away again on the descent, opening up a small gap for several seconds, but the rest of the main GC group swept him up in short order.

The lead group was down to around 25 riders by the time the road flattened out again for the final six kilometres.

With around 2.5 kilometres to go, Roglic made his third and final attack, and this time, it stuck. Mas and then race-leader De la Cruz himself came close to shutting down the move before flagging and allowing Roglic to pull out a few more metres off the front.

That was all he needed to stay clear all the way to the line, with a small crash in the bunch in the final corners possibly contributing to his success. Roglic rolled down the finishing straight with two seconds on the chasers, denying Matthews and the other fast finishers their chance at battling for the win in the last few hundred metres.

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