Tour de Luxembourg: Ethan Hayter fastest on stage 4 time trial as Brandon McNulty takes over race lead

British time trial champion Ethan Hayter (Soudal-Quickstep) blitzed the time trial at the Tour de Luxembourg, clocking a time of 30:38 on the rolling 26.3 km course around Niederanven. Coming in second, 28 seconds back, was Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), while Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) was third, 58 seconds back.

The win marked Hayter’s third victory with his new team this season, adding to his stage win at the Baloise Belgium Tour and the British time trial title, both in June.

“I'm obviously really happy, it was a really hard TT today. And it's not been the easiest season for me, and I'm really happy that Soudal-Quickstep kept believing in me and my friends and family and stuff. And it's been really nice to show what I can do in the TTs this year,” Hayter said. “I've now won the last few TTs. So this was great.”

Both McNulty and Healy were faster than Hayter at the 11.3km intermediate time check, but faded on the return leg while Hayter sustained his speed.

“Actually, I felt like I slowed down in the second half, to be honest, but maybe everyone else slowed down more. It was hard, and, maybe the first half, we started uphill straight away, and I didn't really get into my rhythm, and I felt like I was going a bit slow, but I still pushing quite good power. So maybe I lost a bit of time there, and then I was just punching over every climb as hard as I could. It was rolling all the way a bit and just punching over, recovering over and over again and suffering all the way to the line," Hayter said.

The race of truth shook up the general classification. McNulty, who had a two-second deficit on GC at the start of the day, takes over the race lead from Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), 10th on the stage, 1:23 down from the winner.

With one stage to go, McNulty has a commanding lead of 47 seconds on Skjelmose, and 1:04 on Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) who jumped four spots to third overall. Mathys Rondel (Tudor) moved up to fourth at 1:12 down while Tom Skujins (Lidl-Trek) is in fifth, tied on time with Marc Hirshi (Tudor), both at 1:19 down.

Tour de Luxembourg concludes on Sunday with the hilly 176,4km stage 5 from Mersch to Luxembourg Limpertsberg. The traditional finale features the climbs of Nommern, Gralingen, Kautenbach and three brutal ascents of the short but steep Pabeierbierg. 

How it unfolded

The peloton, down to 115 riders, faced a 26.3 km course around Niederanven under sunny skies for the penultimate stage of the Tour de Luxembourg.

EF Education-EasyPost’s Max Walker was first out of the gate, posting 32:30, but his stint in the hot seat didn’t last long. Johan Price Pejtersen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) led at the intermediate split before fading on the return leg, and the sixth rider to start, Joel Suter (Tudor), then took over with a time of 32:28.

It took over 50 riders before the top of the leaderboard changed, first with Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) with 31:54, and then Thibault Gernalec (Arkea-B&B Hotels) with 31:39.

British time trial champion Ethan Hayter (Soudal-Quickstep) blitzed the course, setting the fastest time in the 11.3km time check, and stopping the clock at 30:38, the first rider under 31 minutes and a full minute quicker than Gernalec.

Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) started fast, setting the fastest time at the intermediate time check, but faded to finish almost one minute behind Hayter’s time.

Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) also came out fast on the first leg, beating Healy’s time on the first time check but could not hold his pace, and slotted into second place.

The final rider to start, race leader Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), was the 13th fastest rider at 28 seconds down. He battled to the finish line to ultimately take 10th place.

With only 23 seconds separating the top 10 on GC, every second mattered for the riders leaving the start gate.

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