Tour de Romandie: Higuita and Vlasov go 1-2 for Bora-Hansgrohe on summit finish of Zinal

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Sergio Higuita defeated his Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Alexsandr Vlasov to win stage 4 of the Tour de Romandie. 

In a rarely seen scenario, the teammates sprinted against each other from a reduced bunch, before celebrating a 1-2 finish for Bora-Hansgrohe as they crossed the finish line in Zinal.

Rohan Dennis retained the overall lead after his Jumbo-Visma teammates Sepp Kuss and Steven Kruijswijk managed to deter any dangerous attacks from going clear. 

Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) climbs to second overall having sprinted for third behind the two Bora-Hansgrohe riders, while Vlasov rises to third. 

Despite the multiple big climbs tackled throughout the day touted as the Queen Stage, a group of about fifteen riders were still together at the finish, after the steady gradients of the final climb, a headwind, and a controlling pace by Jumbo-Visma meant the race was not as selective as expected. 

The only attack that did go on the final climb was from young Colombian Einer Augusto Rubio (Movistar), who was heartbreakingly caught just 300 metres from the finish. 

Rubio attacked 9km from the finish, just as the two remaining riders from the day’s original break, Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) and Oscar Rodriguez (Movistar), were caught.

Rubio retained a lead of around 15 seconds right up until just 1,500 metres from the finish, when the likes of UAE Team Emirates and Ineos Grenadiers increased the pace. 

Ineos’ Luke Plapp (whose teammate and defending champion Geraint Thomas had been dropped earlier) attempted multiple attacks as Rubio was being caught. But it was Higuita’s move closer to the finish from the left-hand side of the road that was decisive. 

Vlasov latched onto Higuita’s wheel in the sprint and did attempt to go around him, but any question of internal rivalry was answered when both riders celebrated simultaneously as they crossed the line.

How it unfolded

The foul, stormy weather that had been anticipated never quite materialised, although strong wins did affect the riders throughout the day.

This was nevertheless expected to be a very tough, decisive stage, with the many climbs on the menu set to bring to life a GC race that remained wide open. 

One contender who was however no longer in contention was Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), who failed to take the start today. 

A tailwind and big battle to get into the day’s break contributed to a very fast start to the stage, until a twelve-rider group was established.

That group featured a top climber in Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), two riders within 40 seconds on GC in Quinten Hermans (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert Materiaux) and Filippo Colombo (Switzerland), and nine other riders: Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo), Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto-Soudal), Oscar Rodriguez (Movistar), James Knox (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl), Ivo Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates), Marco Brenner (DSM), Raul Garcia Pierna (Equipo Kern Pharma), Nils Burn and Yannis Voisard (both Switzerland). 

The many climbs on route meant that group was always likely to break up, and five riders proved too strong on the uphills for the others, and went clear: Izagirre, Vanhoucke, Knox, Skuijns and Rodriguez. 

Of these riders out front, Skuijns showed most interest in the King of the Mountains classification, claiming maximum points on enough of the summits to take the jersey. 

Their advantage mostly hovered around three minutes, ahead of a peloton being led by Rohan Dennis’ Jumbo-Visma, but started to fall quickly once they began climbing the penultimate climb of the day, the category one Les Pontis. 

The lead group thinned out even more on that climb, with first Skuijns and then Vanhoucke dropping out before the summit was reached, leaving just Izagirre, Rodriguez and Knox out front. 

A plateau then brought the riders to the official start of the final classified climb of the day, the category one Grimentz. At this point, thanks to work from Bahrain-Victorious and Groupama-FDJ at the head of the peloton, and then an increase in pace as multiple GC teams tried to position themselves ideally, the leading trio’s advantage was down to barely one minute.

Knox was dropped right at the start of climb, while the other pair were swept up as Rubio launched his attack.

Despite the expected fireworks, Rubio was the only rider to launch a fully-committed attack, and fifteen riders reached the finish within six seconds of each other.

That means Dennis goes into tomorrow’s climactic time trial with a lead of fifteen and eighteen seconds respectively to defend over Juan Ayuso and Alexsandr Vlasov, with another 13 riders within a minute.