It was another big chance for the sprinters on stage 4 of the Vuelta a Andalucia, and it was taken by young Belgian sprint sensation, Tom Crabbe (Flanders-Baloise), ahead of Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) and Sandy Dujardin (TotalEnergies), rounding off the podium in Pozoblanco.
The day started off slowly with a steady ascent of the one and only categorised climb with a three-man break getting away. They were kept on a tight leash, though, as the peloton had eyes on the first Golden Kilometre of the race with nine seconds available. They were well fought for, with Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ United) coming out of it best of the GC men, gaining five bonus seconds, moving up to third overall
Attacks from the likes of Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) went in the final few kilometres, but it was another day for the sprinters with the new sprint star coming out of Belgium taking his second career win after starting the season well at Etoile de Besseges.
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Iván Romeo (Movistar) remains the overall race leader heading into the fifth and final stage on Sunday, seven seconds ahead of Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), while Gregoire is now in third place overall.
The finale stage 5 is expected to be a GC day with 167.6km of racing on the menu from La Roda de Andalucia to Lucena and the category 3 climb of the Alto de la Primera Cruz taken on twice, and could throw the GC wide open.
How it unfolded
The 4th stage of the Vuelta a Andalucia started in Montoro with another undulating day with 166km of racing to finish with what was an expected sprint in Pozoblanco. There wasn’t as much climbing as on previous days with the most major ascent coming very early on in the day with the 7.9km Alto de Españares which was a category 2.
It was the usual aggressive start to racing as the breakaway tried to form. And it was a breakaway veteran, Geoffrey Bouchard (TotalEnergies), who launched first. He was joined by Nil Gimeno (Kern Pharma) before Luca Cretti (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort) also bridged across the gap. They quickly gained a sizeable gap of almost two minutes after 15 minutes of racing.
Bouchard led the break over the top of the Alto de Españares ahead of Gimeno and Cretti with the mountains classification leader, Josh Burnett (Burgos-BH-Burpellet), taking the final available point on the only categorised climb of the day. That meant that he extended his lead in the competition over race leader Ivan Romeo (Movistar).
With the riders going over the 100km to go mark, the break made it to the first intermediate sprint of the entire race, which took place in Villanueva de Córdoba with Bouchard taking three points ahead of Gimeno, who took two and Cretti, who took one point.
Back in the bunch, the pace was rather high, with the break being pegged back to around a minute and a half. The team doing all the work was Groupama-FDJ United, with Valentin Madouas and Maxime Decomble doing the pacing for their sprinter, Paul Penhoet.
The time gap dropped below a minute inside the final 50km, and then Gimeno had a mechanical, requiring a bike change. This was a blow to the break, especially Cretti, who was just 54 seconds off the race lead and was likely hoping to make it to the first Golden Kilometre of the race with a maximum of 9 seconds available.
Riders rode into Pozoblanco for the first of two intermediate sprints, won, yet again, by Bouchard, with Cretti in second. Gimeno, now caught by the peloton, did not take third. That place was taken by Madouas, who was still pushing hard for his sprinter in the peloton.
With 30km to go, the break had just over 20 seconds, with the Golden Kilometre looking like it could be just as key as the race organisers would have hoped for.
The efforts of Bouchard and Cretti came to an end when they were caught with just over 26km to go.
As the Golden Kilometre came closer, various teams came to the front for their GC men. Pinarello-Q36.5 for Tom Pidcock, Uno-X Mobility for Andreas Leknessund, UAE Team Emirates-XRG for both Tim Wellens and Jan Christen and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe for Aleksandr Vlasov. Movistar were rather boxed out with 1km to go to the first of the three sprints.
It was a chaotic series of sprints with teammates protecting their leader’s gaps on GC, as well as some of the big GC names going for it. Pidcock and Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ United) took key bonuses with Uno-X Mobility and Movistar doing a lot of work to protect the top two in GC, Romeo and Leknessund. Pidcock took two seconds, and Gregoire took five seconds in bonuses.
After the Golden Kilometre, it was Visma-Lease a Bike who took over the pacing of the peloton as they focused on Christophe Laporte yet again for the final sprint. Two riders tried to get away from Petrolike and MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort, and they did get a bit of space on the bunch, but were quickly caught. However, some cobbles in a village with 7km to go saw UAE Team Emirates-XRG launch some attacks with Wellens going clear with Laporte, as well as Marcin Budzinski (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort).
Cofidis and Uno-X Mobility were the teams trying to chase hard as the trio got a good gap and, with two dangerous riders in the GC involved, Movistar moved to the front to chase. Budzinski started to contribute with 3km to go, with Pozoblanco getting ever closer, but Cofidis made the final big effort to drag them back, led by Dylan Teuns.
Uno-X Mobility and Visma-Lease a Bike battled it out for control in the final 2km of racing. Both teams looked good for the sprint, but it was Belgian youngster Crabbe who came through the narrow gaps to take the win ahead of Wærenskjold and Dujardin.
The race is still all to play for with one day to go, as the top 10 are split by just 54 seconds, and the day with the most climbing is still to come to bring the race to its exciting conclusion in Lucena.
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