Tirreno-Adriatico: Victory and leader's jersey for Pogacar on stage 4

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Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) showed his class to take the first summit finish of Tirreno-Adriatico at Prati di Tivo, holding off a lively chase from Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange) by six seconds. 

Sergio Higuita (EF Education-Nippo) out-sprinted Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) for third at 29 seconds.

Overnight race leader Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) put in a spirited defense of the blue jersey but was isolated and succumbed to multiple attacks in the final kilometre, finishing 45 seconds down and ceding the top spot in the standings to Pogačar.

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All is not lost for the Belgian, however, as he remains second overall at 35 seconds with Higuita tied on time in third.

The final climb saw previous challengers Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quickstep) plummet down the standings, with the Dutch champion sitting up early on the ascent and the world champion hanging on until Pogačar launched his move with 5.5km still to climb.

An isolated Van Aert withstood multiple attacks on the 14km long climb from an elite group of Grand Tour contenders, having to respond to surges from climbing specialists like Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), and Tour de France winners Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers)

It wasn't until last year's Tour champion Pogačar attacked with 5.5km to go that the elastic finally snapped and the 22-year-old leapt clear. The move allowed Van Aert to finally sit on as his fellow chasers recognized the danger and began to give chase.

João Almeida (Deceuninck-Quickstep) was the first to come around but he was no match for a powerful counter-attack from Yates, Landa and Bernal and the Portuguese rider was forced to chase together with Higuita and Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic).

Van Aert found his second wind and, as Yates attacked to ditch Landa and Bernal, the Jumbo-Visma rider brought all but Pogačar and Yates back and set such a brisk tempo that Bernal and Thomas both lost touch.

In the final kilometre it looked as if Pogačar might have gone too hard too soon as Yates closed down a 17-second gap to just six at the line but the Briton ran out of road and had to settle for second.

Pogačar now has one Classics-style stage and a flat day for the sprinters to come before Tuesday's closing time trial.

"Today was a very hard stage. My team did a great job bringing down the gap from the breakaway and then I did my best on the climb: I am very satisfied with this win," Pogačar said.

"Now I am in the lead, but tomorrow we have another really hard stage, and with the final ITT anything can still happen."

While the gaps in the overall standings are still small enough that Van Aert's hopes of winning the general classification are not entirely gone, gaining 35 seconds back on Pogačar will be a tall order.

"It's a big gap," Van Aert said. "The next stages should be on me and I'm definitely not giving up yet. I think it makes particular sense to look up and seize the opportunities that arise. I'm going to keep trying anyway.

"Pogacar, together with my teammate Primoz Roglic, is the best allrounder of the moment. It is only logical that he takes over my jersey."

How it unfolded

Stage 4 of Tirreno-Adriatico got underway under sunny skies and with delightful spring temperatures of 19°C in Terni for a 148km stage to the summit showdown at Prati di Tivo. 170 riders took the start, with only Manuel Belletti (Eolo-Kometa) absent after suffering a crash late in the previous stage.

Race leader Van Aert held a thin four-second lead over Van der Poel, with Alaphilippe at 10 seconds. The Belgian faced his first major challenge against more seasoned stage race contenders, with Landa fourth at 19 seconds, and a bunch of big names at 20 seconds: Pogačar, Quintana, Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo), and Romain Bardet (Team DSM).

The early kilometres were the domain of the stage hunters and riders with ambitions for the mountains classification, and Mattia Bais (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) and Mads Würtz Schmidt (Israel Start-Up Nation) were the first to jump clear. Benjamin Thomas (Groupama-FDJ) and Emil Vinjebo (Team Qhubeka Assos) scrambled across, but soon Vinjebo lost touch and was chasing along with Marco Canola (Gazprom-RusVelo).

In the valley after about 35km of racing, the riders came together and forged out a sizeable lead over the peloton, with the gap ballooning from six to nearly nine minutes after 48km. The breakaway worked well together until the first classified ascent of the Passo delle Capannelle, where first Vinjebo and then Canola lost touch, leaving three riders to try and hold off the peloton, led by Bahrain Victorious.

Würtz was the rider most keen to go on the attack and he nipped clear over the top, but Thomas and Bais came back. That all changed when they reached the base of the Prati di Tivo, where Thomas attacked and was marked by Würtz while Bais dropped off. Vinjebo and Canola were then caught by the peloton which had whittled the gap down to just three minutes.

Würtz then attacked to leave Thomas behind and kept pushing as the Ineos Grenadiers-led peloton began rapidly shrinking. Van der Poel seemed entirely uninterested in contesting a major mountain finale and went out the back early in the climb. Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) went out the other end, putting in a long-range attack with 11km still to climb.

The peloton kept Ciccone in check and he was soon back in the fold, having never gotten more than a dozen seconds. Würtz soldiered on with 2:30 when Egan Bernal attacked with 7.8km to climb. The attack drew out Pogacar, Jakob Fuglsang (Astana-Premier Tech) and Landa, but Van Aert closed down the attack on his own, his Jumbo-Visma teammates all gone.

The surge knocked a minute off Würtz's lead as Geraint Thomas first tried to counter and, when that failed, remained at the front to shut down an attack from João Almeida (Deceuninck-QuickStep).

Thomas tried again with 6.8km to go and Van Aert again was tasked with the pacemaking. The Ineos rider passed his French namesake coming back from the breakaway and reduced Würtz to just one minute's lead with 6km to climb but the former Tour de France winner's pedalling style looked laboured and he dangled tantalisingly ahead of the blue jersey group - a bit of bait that proved irresistible to Pogačar, who attacked with 5.5km to go and quickly reached the Welshman.

With 5km to go, Pogačar caught Würtz and left Geraint Thomas behind and began a 4.7km individual pursuit: the defending Tour de France champion against the race leader Van Aert whose solo effort both reeled in Thomas and jettisoned riders like Nibali.

Finally, with 4km to go, Bernal attacked and was followed by Landa and Simon Yates, with Almeida, Quintana and Higuita chasing behind.

Yates attacked his group and set off in pursuit of Pogačar, who had 11 seconds with 2.6km to go, while behind, Van Aert's steady tempo brought back all the other riders ahead.

With 2.3km to go, Pogačar looked back to see the Briton coming and upped his tempo. Behind, Van Aert kept the gap to half a minute and his impressive effort distanced yet another Tour de France winner: after ditching Nibali and Thomas, Bernal was next to lose touch. Soon Pogačar began to succumb to the pace of Yates - an uncharacteristic grimace on the young Slovenian's face with 1km to go.

But Pogačar showed his class and held off Yates to claim the stage win and race lead.

Van Aert said the final climb went well for him but the wind made it easier for others to attack.

"I really had to ride five kilometres on my limit," Van Aert said. "There was a lot of wind and that makes it easier to attack. If I wasn't wearing that blue jersey, I could save myself for the final shot. That was not the case now. There were a few guys better and a lot of guys were daring me. They could wait and see, I couldn't."