Bos wins stage 4 in Strathcona County

Belkin's Theo Bos paid off his team's work in the finale with a sprint win during during Saturday's penultimate stage of the Tour of Alberta, taking the victory in Strathcona County ahead of Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEdge) and Jure Kocjan (Team SmartStop).

Giant-Shimano's Tom Dumoulin finished safely in the field and continues to lead the general classification by eight seconds over Bissell Development Team's Ruben Zepuntke and nine seconds over Impey, who moved into third after grabbing the six-second time bonus for his second-place stage finish. Garmin-Sharp's Ramunas Navardauskas is fourth overall, 13 seconds down. Jelly Belly-Maxxis rider Serghei Tvetcov is 14 seconds down in fifth.

The peloton brought back an eight-rider breakaway on the second of three closing circuits to set up the final bunch kick, where Bos edged Impey after a chaotic 500 meter run to the line. It was Belkin's second win in as many days following Sep Vanmarcke's victory during Friday's stage 3.

"With one lap to go all the teams were making their move to take the lead with three or four kilometers to go until the finish," Bos said. "So everybody wants to make their move with their sprinter. At that point we lost a little position. There was a strong headwind before the last corner, so we were able to come back. I was in fourth position through the last corner, so that was perfect. I'm really happy that it worked out in the end."

Saturday's 163.5km stage 4 run from Edmonton to Strathcona County featured six sections of rough pavement, which the locals refer to as "Canadian Pavé." The course also included three sections of gravel roads that totaled about 5km. The stage finished with three laps of a 2.8km circuit, the tightest and shortest closing circuit of the week.

A breakaway of six riders escaped less than 10km into the day. It included UnitedHealthcare's Jonny Clarke, 5-hour Energy's Bruno Langlois, Silber Pro Cycling's Aurelien Passeron, Bissell Development Team's Greg Daniel and Garneau-Quebecor teammates Jake Kauffman and Janvier Hadi. Nic Hamilton (Jelly Belly-Maxxis) and Travis Livermon (Team SmartStop) bridged up to the move and made contact after the first gravel section about 38km into the stage.

Unlike the previous stages, the peloton seemed content with the make up of the early break and let the gap build quickly. The six riders in the lead had more than three minutes on the field before the gravel, and the gap went up to 4:15 70km in. The field apparently believed that gap was too large, and with Optum Pro Cycling setting the pace, the peloton pulled two minutes back over the next 20km.

The gap hovered around two minutes over the next 30km but came down to 1:20 with 40km to go. The gap was back up to 1:40 by the time Garmin and then Belkin took over the front with 25km remaining. The teams mixed it up in the peloton until Orica hit the front in force with 16km to go to try and split the field. The effort met with little success, however, and Australian team ceded the front back to Belkin.

"We're of the frame of mind that if you don't try you'll never know," Orica's Leigh Howard said of his team's effort to break things up. "Unfortunately there was nowhere near enough wind today. It didn't cost us anything to try. We'll keep trying, but we didn't want to use to much energy because we know tomorrow is the most important day of the whole tour. We want to save as much energy as possible for tomorrow."

The chasers eventually whittled the gap down to just 30 seconds with 10km to go, and the bunch sprint was imminent.

Sunday's conclusion at the Tour of Alberta will take over the streets of downtown Edmonton with a 121km circuit race. The peloton will traverse 11 laps of a difficult 11km circuit that features the short-but-steep climb up Bellamy Hill Road, which played a starring role in last year's prologue. The ensuing descent to the riverfront is followed by another climb back to the start/finish in the city center.

Dumoulin said the course suits him and his team well, but there are still 26 riders within one minute, and Giant will have it's work cut out for it.

"It's gonna be really hard," Dumoulin said. "... A lot of guys are within 30 seconds and 40 seconds, so I expect an aggressive race tomorrow. But we have a good team for that, and I'm really, really doing well in the hills. So I think it won't be a problem."

Bos said his team is happy with the results so far this week, but Belkin will come out firing during Sunday's stage to try and lift Impey into the final overall lead.

"It's a good race for us so far, one time second and two victories," Bos said. "Tomorrow we see for GC what we can do, but we are already really happy with the results so far." 

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