Italian veteran Matteo Malucelli (XDS-Astana) has captured a memorable shock bunch sprint win on stage 4 of the AlUIa Tour after a slight miscalculation by arch-favourite Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) saw the Italian suffer a surprise defeat in the final metres.
Overall and with one day remaining, the GC remains in the hands of Yannis Voisard (Tudor Pro Cycling), after a largely flat 173-kilometre stage where the main interest boiled down to the final mass dash for the line at Shalal Sijyat Rocks.
Following an acceleration by veteran German fastman Pascal Ackermann (Jayco AlUla), Milan was forced to come around into the wind and go from long, with Malucelli shadowing him closely.
The stage 1 and 2 winner could not sustain his effort all the way to the line, allowing Malucelli to flash past Milan – who visibly eased a little, accepting his defeat by the 32-year-old compatriot in the closing metres – whilst Picnic-PostNL's Frits Biesterbos took third.
How it unfolded
A 16-rider breakaway formed quickly on the largely flat course, with the most dangerous rider present, Mathis Le Berre (TotalEnergies), 49 seconds back on GC. Interest was high, though, in how hard Lidl-Trek would push for Milan, particularly as one DNS was Lidl's Edward Theuns.
Furthermore, Lidl had no one in the break while race leader Yannis Voisard (Tudor) had a teammate, Lithuanian road and time trial champion Aivaras Mikutis, in the very large move.
The 16 breakaways gained north of two minutes before Tudor started working in earnest in the bunch. But the second major development of the stage came not in the break, but when there was a split in the peloton with around 100 kilometres to go, and Sergio Higuita (Astana-XDS), third overall, was caught out in the back, only to regain contact some 70 kilometres later following a desperate chase.
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Meantime, the break was swept up with 56 kilometres to go, and despite some hints of echelons, the flat stage, a strong headwind and looming decisive GC stage on Saturday helped keep things together.
Tudor continued to work hard with early mover Mikutis keeping the race under control for Voisard as they approached the third and final sprint of the day.
Terengganu Cycling Team continued their push for the limelight as Tour de Langkawi stage winner Zeb Kyffin sneaked off the front and claimed maximum points. But then he pressed on, opening up a gap of nearly 30 seconds on the flat run-in to Shilal before being sucked back in five kilometres from the line.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tudor Pro Cycling continued to handle the pace surprisingly close to the line, with the headwind helping to keep things together. Modern Adventure were the first to really accelerate hard as they roared towards the last kilometre barriers, and then Jayco-AlUla took over in the final left-hand corner.
Lidl-Trek opted to leave it very late, with Milan's miscalculation then being exploited to the full by Malucelli, the 18th win in his career a major feather in his cap as he defeated one of the current greats of the sprinting world.
After a third sprint in four days, the battle for the GC will now come down to the last day of the race, culminating with the now-traditional ascent to Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid - the sixth in seven years - on Saturday's 163.9 kilometre final stage.
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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