Ruta del Sol: Jack Haig wins stage 4

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Jakob Fuglsang's options on taking a straight second straight title in the Vuelta a Andalucia remained fully on track on Saturday after the Danish racer put up a strong defence of his lead on the race's final mountain stage, won by Australia's Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott).

The crunch moment of the stage came when Astana Pro team racer shadowed Haig and arch-rival Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) over the summit of the final, tough ascent of the day, the first category Alto del Purche.

The trio then worked well together to maintain a 30-second gap on their closest pursuers, UAE's Brandon McNulty and Astana's Ion Izagirre on the 85kmh drop back down to Granada, once again the finishing city for a key mountain stage in Andalucia.

Landa led out the three-way sprint on the Paseo de la Bomba boulevard and Fuglsang ground his way past the Basque, but Haig timed his final acceleration perfectly for his first win since a stage of the Tour de Pologne three years ago.

Haig's victory was sweet sporting revenge after his major disappointment on Friday, where the 26-year-old was ideally poised to do battle for the stage win but then followed Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-McLaren) off course on a badly indicated sharp right-hand bend.

Granada is, also, a finish which has smiled on Mitchelton-Scott racers for two years running now - 12 months ago Haig's team-mate Simon Yates won there thanks to a spectacular solo break over another tough climb in the foothills of Sierra Nevada, the Hazallanas. This time around, it was Haig, ninth in the 2019 stage, cracking open the champagne.

"To finish with the stage win is a relief and a good feeling. I'm much happier than yesterday. I felt tired but nervous for the sprint," Haig said afterwards.

"It was only a short stage at 130km but it began fast. A big group got away but Astana controlled it. Then when we got close to Granada, the pace ramped up and it was a full out race on the climb."

Already second in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana this February, where he also led for a day, Haig's strong mountain performance and gutsy late sprint victory has also allowed the Australian to move into third overall in the provisional GC ranking - where he was sixth last year.

However, Fuglsang, who has led Andalucia since day one, continues to forge on towards an increasingly likely, if not yet definitive, second overall victory in three years. While the Dane goes into Sunday's final time trial stage with his 14-second advantage over second-placed Landa and 35 second lead on Haig unchanged, after stage 4, the rest of the field, led by team-mate Izagirre, are now distanced to over a minute. Given that kind of time gap all but impossible to recover in just 13 kilometres against the clock on Sunday, only Landa and Haig can now put up a late challenge the Dane.

Perhaps knowing that Landa's best chance of sinking Fuglsang would be on the climbs rather than in a time trial, Bahrain-Merida combined with the Fundación Euskadi - Orbea squad to lay down a furious pace to the foot of the Purche, the most difficult ascent on Saturday's short but punishing 125-kilometre final mountain stage. An 18 man break that had formed early on withered in the face of the two teams' joint onslaught, whilst a hefty chunk of the peloton had already thrown in the towel before the road began to steepen for one last time on the stage.

As for the race leader himself, Fuglsang was always close to the front of the main group of favourites, even as Landa's team-mates Matej Mohoric and Gianpaolo Caruso drove hard to put the Dane under pressure.

Perhaps seeking to prevent his rivals challenging him, Fuglsang attempted one big attack seven kilometres from the summit of the Purche, only for Landa to drag a group of half a dozen riders including Izagirre, Haig, a very active McNulty and a flagging Marc Soler (Movistar) back up to him.

But once caught, Fugslang opted, bizarrely, to keep driving on and off at the head of the little group of favourites despite having team-mate Izagirre - distanced, together with Solver by a brief, subsequent, dig by Landa - struggling during his previous attack and now a bare 50 metres behind him. 

Amongst others, Fuglsang's lengthy drive had Alberto Contador, now commentating for Eurosport, openly baffled by the Dane's strategy of leaving his own teammate - previously at 34 seconds and now at beyond a minute overall - out for the count on the stage.

Either way, while Fuglsang's tactic could not stop Haig and Landa making brief moves close to the summit. The Dane had no problems crushing their attacks, and while the stage itself escaped him 20 kilometres further on, the overall title looks all but certain to remain the Fuglsang's for a second year running.

How it unfolded

With the individual time trial looming it was the last chance for the climbers to make a difference with the category 1 Alto de Purche topping out with 18km to go on a punchy 127km stage from Villanueva Mesía to Granada.

It could have been one for the breakaway as the overall contenders saved their efforts for the final stage and there were plenty of riders willing to go on the attack with an 18-rider move going clear in the early kilometres.

Lennard Hofstede (Team Jumbo-Visma), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar Team), Kobe Goossens (Lotto Soudal), Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain McLaren), Silvan Dillier (AG2R la Mondiale), Maurits Lammertink (Circus-Wanty Gobert), Jerome Cousin and Damien Gaudin (Total Direct Energie), Orluis Alberto Aular Sanabria (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Kevin Reza (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept), Floris De Tier and Jimmy Janssens (Alpecin-Fenix), Benoit Jarrier (Team Arkea-Samsic), James Shaw (Riwal Readynez), Juan Felipe Osorio Arboleda and Angel Madrazo Ruiz (Burgos-BH), Ivan Moreno Sanchez (Kern Pharma), and Evgeny Shalunov (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo made up the breakaway but were only ever allowed less than a three-minute advantage.

De Tier led the group over the top of the two early category 3 climbs, the Puerto de Nivar and Alto de Huetor Santillan.

Vuelta a España stage winner Madrazo put in an attack in the valley before the Alto de Purche on an unclassified ascent to the intermediate sprint, where he took the points and led the race into the base of the Purche with a 28-second lead.

The group of race leader Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), the remnants of a peloton which had splintered on the earlier climbs, swept Madrazo up on the lower slopes. Bahrain McLaren led into the ascent for Mikel Landa before Fuglsang himself took up the pace and opened up a gap - shattering the group behind on the steepest early slopes.

The group reeled Fuglsang in but at great cost, with only Landa, Jack Haig (Mitchelton-Scott) and Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) the only riders able to hold the wheel of the Dane.

As the gradient eased, Ion Izagirre began to rejoin the leaders, spurring an attack by McNulty as they sped across a plateau before the summit.

Fuglsang closed down the move before Haig launched a counter as the climbing resumed, putting McNulty out the back and preventing Izagirre from making contact.

Fuglsang, Landa and Haig came together on the sinuous descent, with Haig taking the front until the course leveled off somewhat with 6km to go.

Haig tried to get Landa to pull through, but after the Spaniard refused and the pace dropped, Fuglsang came through to keep the trio rolling.

Just outside the kilometre banner, Haig tried to escape but Fuglsang shut it down and put in a surge of his own, with Landa holding onto his wheel. It came back together for some cat and mouse before Landa put in his move but it wasn't enough and Haig came over the top to take the stage.

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