Tour of the Alps: Montaguti wins stage 4

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Matteo Montaguti (AG2R La Mondiale) narrowly out-sprinted Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) to claim Thursday’s fourth stage of the Tour of the Alps.

The day came down to a high-speed bunch finish after a spirited break was brought to heel inside the last three kilometres. Pinot hit the front early in the ensuing sprint, leading into the final 50 metres of the finishing straight, but Montaguti surged past just before the line to take the win. BMC’s Rohan Dennis was a close third behind Pinot.

Sky’s Geraint Thomas finished safely with the peloton to retain his overall race lead.

A trio of escapees almost almost managed to fend off the pack to contest the win amongst themselves. AG2R’s Hubert Dupont spent half an hour bridging to the last two survivors of an early break, Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani CSF) and Kilian Frankiny (BMC Racing), successfully linking up with the pair inside the final 10 kilometres. However, a Sky-led chase rapidly closed the gap as the finish line neared, and it was soon all over for the breakaway as the pack swept them up only a few minutes later.

That left little time for any sprint trains to get organised, with Montaguti emerging victorious in a hectic finale.

How it unfolded

Frankiny, Pirazzi, Simone Andreetta (Bardiani CSF), Davide Villella (Cannondale-Drapac) and Jérémy Roy (FDJ) formed the main breakaway early on the undulating 165.3km stage from Bolzano to Cles. Their gap to grew to around three and a half minutes before it stabilised, and it hovered thereabouts for the next 80 kilometres or so. It then fell to Team Sky, with Thomas in control of the leader’s jersey, to up the tempo at the front of the pack.

Pirazzi attacked his breakaway companions on the Forcella di Brez, cresting the summit alone but with Frankiny in hot pursuit. Meanwhile, a handful of riders launched moves out of the peloton, with Astana’s Dario Cataldo making a big attack. With all the escapees save the duo up the road swept up, Pinot joined a small group of aggressors bridging to Cataldo, briefly opening a gap, before things came back together for the pack shortly after the summit.

Frankiny caught up with Pirazzi on the ensuing descent. Moments later, he tried to leave Pirazzi behind, but the Italian stubbornly shut down the attack. From there, the pair settled for riding in tandem. Back in the peloton, Dupont jumped clear off the front in solo pursuit.

The Frenchman closed down much of the gap on an uncategorised climb with around 15 kilometres to go and continued to cut into the advantage of Frankiny and Pirazzi over the next few minutes. He finally joined them with around seven kilometres left to race.

Shortly thereafter, with the pack hot on their heels, Dupont and Frankiny dropped Pirazzi, though only for a few moments. The Bardiani-CSF rider rejoined the two out front around three kilometres from the line, but the peloton swept up all three riders moments later, hitting the reset button on the battle for the stage win.

There was little time for anyone to marshal a coordinated lead-out through the final corners. As the pack rounded the final bend onto the finishing straight, Pinot powered into the lead, but Montaguti responded quickly, closing the early gap to the Frenchman and pulling past just before the finish line for the win.

A 199.6km final stage from Smarano to Trento awaits the Tour of the Alps peloton on Friday, with Thomas sitting atop the overall leaderboard, 13 seconds ahead of Pinot.

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