Tour of Britain: Van Aert beats Alaphilippe to win stage 4 at Great Orme

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Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) claimed his second win of the Tour of Britain on stage 4, beating Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) to the top of the short steep final climb on the Great Orme.

The Belgian champion, who won the uphill sprint on the opening day, this time matched the world champion on double-digit gradients and pipped him to the line to take the overall lead of the race.  

Michael Woods (Israel Start-Up Nation) finished a more distant third place, having been the only rider able to match the pair on the steepest pitches at the mid-point of the 1.8km climb, and having in fact launched the acceleration that took them clear as a trio. 

Race leader Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) rode his own pace on the steep section and came back to the trio with 500 metres to go after a brief plateau, but was distanced again as the road ramped up and his rivals opened up for the line. 

He finished in fifth place - behind Alaphilippe’s teammate Mikel Honoré - at eight seconds, which, added to the 10 bonus seconds for the stage win, put Van Aert into the navy leader’s jersey by two seconds. Alaphilippe sits third at 11 seconds. 

After a somewhat chaotic 200km of racing up through Snowdonia to the north coast of Wales, a sizeable peloton ticked off the gentle climb around the Great Orme headland before tackling the super-steep 1.8km climb up the middle of it. 

Deceuninck-QuickStep led the way onto it and George Bennett (Jumbo-Visma) set the tempo on the lower slopes, but it was Woods who exploded the race with an acceleration on the steepest section. At first, only Van Aert, Alaphilippe, Honoré, and Sergio Martín (Caja Rural) could follow, with Hayter on his own in between the next group of riders. 

When Woods kicked again with 1.2km to go, the trio was established, and it was nearly a duo as Van Aert struggled to respond to an Alaphilippe acceleration. But they reformed and eased on the gentler section, allowing Hayter to come back with Honoré, who then proceeded to lead out the sprint for Alaphilippe as the gradient pitched up again. The world champion seized the initiative and opened up a handy advantage over Van Aert but the Belgian ground his way back and snatched it with a bike throw. 

How it unfolded

Stage 4 of the Tour of Britain was the longest of the race at 210km and took the peloton up the west coast of Wales, through the Snowdonia mountain range, and up for a finish on top of the Great Orme headland on the north coast. 

The day’s breakaway was soon formed by Gruff Lewis (Ribble-Weldtite), Jacob Scott (Canyon-DhB), Nicolas Sessler (Global 6), Robert Donaldson (Great Britain), Ollie Peckover (SwiftCarbon), and Jokin Murguialday (Caja Rural). The sextet built a lead of eight minutes as local lad Lewis grabbed the first intermediate sprint after 38km. 

The first of the day’s three climbs came in the form of the category-2 ascent at Bwlch Llyn Bach, where green jerseyScott sprinted clear to take maximum points and extend his lead in the mountains classification. At that point, however, with 135km to go, the peloton - powered by Deceuninck-QuickStep, Jumbo-Visma, and Israel Start-Up Nation - were making inroads, cresting the climb six minutes in arrears. 

Flatter terrain led to the second intermediate sprint with 85km to go, where Scott skipped clear to take the points, and where the gap back to the peloton was down to four minutes. 

Next up was the day’s major climb, the category-1 ascent of Eidda’s Well in Snowdonia. There was action all around as Marc Soler (Movistar) launched an attack from the peloton and was joined by a Trinity Racing duo of Ben Healy and Thomas Gloag. They rode together in no-man’s land as Deceuninck-QuickStep set a strong pace behind and threatened to exploit the windswept hillside. At the summit with 65km to go, where Scott once again took maximum points, the original breakaway led the chasing trio by 30 seconds, with the peloton a further 40 seconds behind. 

After the descent, the Soler trio got across, but Jumbo and Israel had started working again and the gap was falling, dropping to just 18 seconds with 50km to go. At that point, the peloton looked to ease back a little to allow the break more room, but the size of the gap inspired attacks, with Yves Lampaert (Deceuninck-QuickStep) tracking a move fro Rory Townsend (Canyon-DhB. Things came back together briefly before second-placed Rohan Dennis (Ineos Grenadiers) found himself off the front in a brief move. 

A new breakaway did establish itself with 30km to go, containing Mauro Schidt (Qhubeka-NextHash), Max Kanter (DSM), and David Gonzalez (Caja Rural). They rolled through the third and final sprint but were swallowed up as the pace increased with 17km to go.

QuickStep then took it up onto the Great Orme, but Ineos Grenadiers controlled the pace on the gentle cat-2 climb around the headland through Owain Doull. A couple of kilometres fro the top, Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) launched an attack and took 10 seconds onto the descent, but was soon swallowed up as the road dragged up ahead of the final climb. 

QuickStep reasserted control on the run-in, but Bennett was the one who took things up on the steep lower slopes, setting a tempo that strung out the bunch but didn’t split it at the front. However, Woods soon appeared as if by stealth on the right, and drew out the key selection, kicking again on the 15 per cent ramps to form an elite trio with Alaphilippe and Van Aert. 

Hayter tried to avoid going into the red and the gentler section allowed him to return and reignite his hopes of keeping the leader’s jersey, but he was powerless when Alaphilippe and Van Aert went for the line, both falling to the grass side-by-side beyond the finish line in what was a fascinating appetiser ahead of the World Championships.