Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) scored his second mountain-top finish victory in a month as he caught and passed Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) in the dying metres of stage 4 at the Tour de Hongrie to win at Gyöngyös-Kékestető.
The German Champion had looked set for glory after attacking just outside the flamme rouge on the 12km closing climb, but Nys sped past in the dying metres to take the win as Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) came through for second ahead of Buchmann.
Nys now takes over the GC lead of the five-day race ahead of the hilltop finish at Etyek on stage and a challenging hilly final day featuring three second-category climbs on Sunday. He has four seconds in hand over Ulissi, while Buchmann lies in third at six seconds.
"It's incredible, I came here for the stage of tomorrow and the last day," Nys said after his win. "Today we just wanted to test the legs and see where we can end. I didn't really know how to react after the first two easy stages, I felt the legs were a bit lazy, but the team did a hell of a job, and Mathias was unbelievably strong. In the end, I found the perfect legs to make it happen.
"I had to be patient. The last 500 meters kicked really steep so I just knew I had to save something for one big shot in the end. It looked like we were not closing in on Buchmann, but then in the end I went all out and we came fast from behind, then I knew it was going to happen."
The GC battle expected to unfold on the queen stage of the race only came late on the day’s final climb, which saw riders battle up an average gradient of 5.6% towards the top. It was Bora-Hansgrohe who kicked things off with Ben Zwiehoff making a move 3.3km from the top before Buchmann took to the front soon afterwards.
The German team settled into a hard rhythm, dropping riders left, right, and centre as the select group came towards the finale. It was at around 1,300 metres from the line when Buchmann decided to make his move, jumping clear in an attempt to take his first win since early 2020.
He quickly built a gap and looked to be racing on his way to a win and the overall lead, but the chasers closed in as the finish neared, with Nys leading the way.
The 21-year-old, who won stage 2 at last month’s Tour de Romandie, his first road race of the season, sped past in the final 150 metres to deny Buchmann the win, leading home Ulissi as Yannis Voisard (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) rounded out the top five further back.
The GC moves had come after the early break was brought back midway up the final climb of the day. Astana Qazaqstan riders Michael Mørkøv and Yevgeniy Gidich had been joined in the break by Manuel Pénalver (Polti-Kometa), Siebe Deweirdt (Flanders-Baloise), Balázs Rózsa (Epronex-Hungary), and Christian Bagatin (MBH Bank-Colpack-Ballan).
Deweirdt managed to extend his mountain classification lead along the way, but their time out front drew to a close on the final difficulty of the stage, with sprinter Kristian Sbaragli (Corratec-Vini Fantini) trying a brave but doomed counter-move.
Back in the peloton, DSM-Firmenich PostNL, UAE Team Emirates, and Bora-Hansgrohe made the pacemaking ahead of the late GC battle, though it was a rider from US team Lidl-Trek who would ride off with the big prize at the top of the mountain.
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