Marco Haller (Katusha Team) took his first professional victory with an assured sprint in Changping at the end of stage four of the Tour of Beijing. The Austrian youngster out-paced Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) and Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale) in a bunch finish, while Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) retained his leader’s jersey with one day to go.

After a scenic afternoon of racing in the Jundu Mountains, the long descent from the ruins of the Great Wall down into Chanping set the stage for the inevitable bunch finish. The battle that ensued turned out to be a generational one, as the 21-year-old Haller impetuously claimed the scalp of the veteran Petacchi in the finishing straight.

17 years and 175 victories separate the two riders, but in the broad, boulevard finish in Changping, it was the young Haller who showed the greater sangfroid. While most of Petacchi’s sprint wins have come in progessione – from distance – the man from La Spezia was perhaps too eager here, hitting the front from all of 300 metres, and fading within sight of the line.

By contrast, Haller demonstrated a kind of patience not readily associated with such tender years, as he sat intently on Petacchi’s rear wheel, and then accelerated past him inside the final 100 metres. Another young gunslinger, Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale), was unable to get on terms and finished third, just ahead of Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank).

“I didn’t expect to win against guys like Petacchi, Viviani and Edvald Boasson Hagen, but I wasn’t afraid of them either,” Haller said.

“It was a very chaotic final kilometre, but I had some strong guys around me who managed to move me up in the finishing straight. Petacchi started his sprint early and I just came onto his wheel and when I was there, I had no big troubles to pass him. It was a great feeling to cross the line in front.”

Before re-signing for Lampre recently, Petacchi had been pondering taking on the role of lead-out man for Mark Cavendish, and the Italian was disappointed to have inadvertently provided that service for Haller. In spite of his 38 years, Petacchi was perhaps not immune to an error of youth – with just three wins to his name in 2012, he admitted that he was simply too keen in the finale. “I was feeling good, so I went from 300 metres, but that was too early,” Petacchi said wistfully. “Maybe I wanted the win too much.”

After coasting over the day’s three categorised climbs near the front of the main field, Haller was imbued with a confidence he had not felt throughout a debut campaign in which his best previous result had been third place in a stage of the Tour du Poitou-Charentes.

“I was feeling very good, I had absolutely no problems on the climbs,” he explained. “I was always in the first twenty guys, so I told my teammates over the radio that I wanted to be the guy in the sprint,” he said. “And it was the right decision.”

In the race for the general classification, Tony Martin continues to hold the red jersey, 40 seconds ahead of Francesco Gavazzi (Astana) and 50 seconds ahead of Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp), with just one day of racing to come.

Roy of the Rovers

While the long descent from Xie Zi Shi into Changping meant that a sprint finish was always the likely outcome, five early escapees were willing to try and defy the odds: Jéremy Roy (FDJ-BigMat), Alex Dowsett (Team Sky), Alex Howes (Garmin-Sharp, Timofey Kritskiy (Katusha) and Mitchell Docker (Orica-GreenEdge).

The quintet forged a decent alliance early on, and Howes – who struggled with illness on his arrival to China and had been a doubtful starter – contributed with particular generosity to their efforts. At the midway point, the break had a lead of four minutes, but their unity would begin to crack in the final 50 kilometres, as they hit the day’s three categorised climbs.

Nearing the summit of the third and final climb, with 33km still to race, Roy bade his breakaway companions adieu and then channelled his inner Paolo Savoldelli as he hurled himself down the descent. “Roy had been the strongest on all of the climbs, and when he attack, nobody even tried to follow,” Dowsett explained afterwards. “I thought he might go all the way.”

With a lead of 2:51 over the peloton at the summit of the climb, an ascent that saw Andy Schleck (RadioShack-Nissan) dropped as he continues his comeback from a fractured pelvis, Roy just about had a fighting chance of retaining his lead to the finish, although RadioShack-Nissan, Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Liquigas-Cannondale were beginning to organise the chase.

“Not everyone was riding at 100% and I could see the peloton was coming back, so I decided to attack,” said Roy. “I would have preferred another rider to come with me, but I still had a go. You never know when there’s a descent to the finish, but it wasn’t really technical enough to slow down the peloton.” Although Roy still had 1:30 in hand with 15km to go, he was beginning to flag as he battled to keep the gear turning, while Lampe-ISD had added their muscle to the chase behind.

Roy’s effort was eventually snuffed out five kilometres from home, and the scene was set for Haller’s surprise win. At 21 years of age, the Austrian is something of an unknown quantity, but explained that in the long-term, he hoped his ambitions would lie beyond bunch sprinting.

“I’m quite a fast guy, but not super fast. I prefer the Classics actually,” Haller said, before adding: “But a Classics guy has to be fast too.”