Tour of California: Jakobsen wins stage 4 as van Garderen crashes

Fabio Jakobsen won Deceuninck-QuickStep's third stage in a row at the Amgen Tour of California, winning stage 4 in Morro Bay on Wednesday. He beat Jasper Philipsen (UAE Team Emirates) and Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) in a close sprint finish. Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) took fourth.

Overnight leader Tejay van Garderen (EF-Education First) retained his lead following a chaotic finale after a crash and a string of other incidents. The American still has a buffer of six seconds over Gianni Moscon (Team Ineos), with Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) a further second back in third.

Asgreen was initially given the overall lead, but race judges deliberated for over an hour before deciding that van Garderen had been held up by a crash just outside the final 3km of the stage – which Moscon was also involved in. Under UCI rules, riders caught up in crashes inside the final 3km are given the same time as the group that they were part of at that time, and both van Garderen and Moscon were given the same finishing time as Asgreen.

"The mass crash near the finish of stage 4 was just outside 3km to go," the race jury said in their official ruling. "The commissaires have decided to treat the crash such that all riders affected by the incident and the road blockage will receive the field time."

Van Garderen had always looked set to keep his race lead all day, but a crash inside the final 10km changed the complexion of his race. He was handed a bike from teammate Lachlan Morton, but then misjudged a corner as Morton uses an opposing brake setup and was forced off the course. That error cost him valuable seconds and, although his team rallied around him, they had no answer to a peloton racing at full tilt.

A second crash inside the peloton – judged later to be just outside the final 3km – held van Garderen up for a third time before he eventually crossed the line over 50 seconds down on the winner. That 50-second deficit was later wiped away by the judges' decision.

As for Deceuninck-QuickStep, their winning streak in the race continues. Jakobsen made use of other teams in the finale before his lead-out launched him to the line inside the final few hundred metres. Sagan, who won on the same finish in 2017, looked set to repeat his previous triumph and was well-placed on Jakobsen's wheel. However, the three-time world champion was unable to come around the Deceuninck-QuickStep rider. Philipsen, who won a stage at the Tour Down Under in January, took a well-deserved second place.

How it unfolded

The 214.5km fourth stage at the Amgen Tour of California took the peloton from Laguna Seca Raceway to Morro Bay – a coastal city with a famous volcanic mound that served as a landmark for shipping days past.

The route included two sprints at 39.5km and 165km. The day's three KOMs came along the Pacific Coast Highway, where the race spent most of the day. The first category 2 climb came at 62km, the second category 3 climb came at 125km, and the final category 3 climb came at 131.5km.

The race got under way in less-than-ideal weather, with 62 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures and a light rain that got heavier shortly after the starting gun was fired. As the race moved south down the coast, however, the clouds began to thin and the sun poked out to dry the road.

The day’s breakaway established itself in the early kilometres and included Roy Goldstein (Israel Cycling Academy), Jonny Brown and Ian Garrison, both of Hagens Berman Axeon, Joonas Henttala (Novo Nordisk) and Michael Hernandez (USA National Team).

The leaders built an initial gap of 5:20, but the field pulled back the leash and kept the advantage between three and four minutes for the bulk of the day.

Henttala took the first sprint of the day ahead of Hernandez and Garrison, while Hernandez claimed maximum points on the first KOM ahead of Henttala, Garrison and Goldtsein. Sixty-three kilometeres later, Hernandez took the second KOM, followed again by Henttala, with Goldstein in third.

The riders didn't have much time to rest, however, as the next KOM came less than 7km later. Hernandez finished off his hat-trick of KOM wins, followed again by Henttala, with Garrison collecting the final KOM point of the day.

With the day's climbs ticked off, the focus came down to the chase. Deceuninck-QuickStep threw a rider into the chase with a single rider from Bora-Hansgrohe, as Trek-Segafredo, Astana, Jumbo-Visma, Team Sunweb and EF Education First lined up in groups behind them.

The gap began its descent from there, falling to 1:10 with 30km remaining. Hernandez and Henttala attacked the leaders with 25km to go and went off alone, but Garrison fought to bring himself and Brown back into the fold. Hernandez launched an attack next, but it was also quickly neutralised.

The late moves were all for naught, however, as the closing pack had the escapees in their sights with just over 10km remaining. That's when the chaos began for van Garderen, with his misjudgment of the corner allegedly due to Morton's bike – which van Garderen took after crashing – having its brakes routed the opposite way around.

Deceuninck-QuickStep, meanwhile, kept a cool head and delivered Jakobsen to the line for the team's third win in a row at this year's Tour of California.

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