Wout Poels wins stage 4 of Ruta del Sol

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Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) took the stage victory and overall lead on stage 4 of the of Ruta del Sol beating Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan) in a two-up sprint finish in Baza.

Poels launched an attack from a leading group of 14 riders inside the last 15 kilometres and took with him Lutsenko before beating his breakaway companion in the sprint finish.

In a gruelling stage 4, the race exploded on the opening first category climb of Alto del El Higueral after just 29 of the 153-kilometre climb had been raced.

Defending Ruta del Sol champion Miguel Ángel López (Astana Qazaqstan) was part of a 14-man leading group including a host of the race favourites.

However, not in the first move was race leader Alessandro Covi (UAE Team Emirates) or Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech).

The leading group sensed the race was there to be won and grew their advantage over the tough stage to eventually finished over seven minutes clear of the peloton.

At the front of the race with 15 kilometres remaining Poels made his bid for glory from the leading group and took with him Lutsenko.

Lutsenko allowed Poels to lead the final two kilometres into the finish with López in the group behind.

Coming alongside each other in a drag race to the line the power of Poels beat Lutsenko to the line 18 seconds ahead of the chasers led home by Mauri Vansevenant (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team).

“It was a really hard day from the start, but we had everything under control,” said Poels.

“We had four people at the front and then at the end myself and Lutsenko got away to finish off in a sprint so I’m really happy.

“Lutsenko was going and I knew he was in a really good condition so I followed him, we worked really well together and I was confident to start the sprint in a headwind.

“Now we have the leader’s jersey we are going to fight for it, the legs are good.”

Going into the final stage Poels leads the overall classification by 10 seconds from López with a further four riders positioned at 12 seconds.

How it unfolded

The fourth stage, also seen as the Queen stage, saw riders tackle 2,987 metres of climbing including two first category climbs within the opening 57 kilometres of the stage over an attritional 167.4 kilometres of racing.

However, the final categorised climb came 44 kilometres before the finish and a final descent from an uncategorised hill into the finish at Baza.

Italian Alessandro Covi (UAE Team Emirates) led the race overall by eight seconds coming into the fourth stage ahead of last year’s winner Miguel Ángel López (Astana Qazaqstan) while a host of riders sat poised at 10 seconds.

With 18 riders separated by less than 30 seconds in the general classification and Covi left exposed the previous day into Otura all was to race for coming into the penultimate stage.

Starting out at Cúllar Vega in a cooler 15 degrees temperature riders hit the first category Alto del Purche after just 15.2 kilometres of racing.

Before the climb a group of five riders went clear including Mikkel Frølich Honoré (QuickStep AlphaVinyl), Greg Van Avermaet (AG2R Citroën), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) and the Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise duo of Rune Herregodts and Jenno Berckmoes.

With a week before Omloop Het Nieuwsblad kick-starts the season Van Avermaet was one of three Belgium riders in the breakaway with the other two coming from Denmark and the Netherlands.

The Alto del Purche saw steep ramps of 10.7% towards the bottom the climb was 6.8 kilometres in length with an average gradient of 9.1%.

Bora-Hansgrohe pushed the pressure and brought back the breakaway putting race leader Covi under pressure leading to the Italian losing 50 seconds on the leading group with 134 kilometres remaining.

A leading group of 15 riders went clear as Miguel Ángel López and the Astana Qazaqstan Team looked to distance Covi in the bunch 50 seconds back.

Other notable riders in the leading group included Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco), Iván Ramiro Sosa (Movistar Team) and Mauri Vansevenant (QuickStep- AlphaVinyl)

Four Bahrain Victorious riders made the leading group and were also joined by Ineos Grenadiers riders Jhonatan Narváez and Carlos Rodriguez.

However, not making the split was Covi, third place overall Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) and Steff Cras (Lotto Soudal).

López took the first King of the Mountains points at the top of Alto del Purche ahead of team-mate Alexey Lutsenko and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Victorious) in third.

As the leading group continued to work hard on the second climb of Puerto de Blancares it was Lutsenko who went over the top first taking the King of the Mountains points ahead of Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën Team) in second and Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA).

With 92 kilometres remaining the leading 15 riders had grown their advantage to 1-50 as they looked to win the race overall.

Despite the best efforts of Bora-Hansgrohe and UAE Team Emirates the bunch were still losing ground and were 2:37 back with 58 kilometres remaining and the long climb of Puerto de Gorafe.

With the gap to the breakaway continuing to grow to over three minutes Covi himself was forced to ride at the front on the second category Puerto de Gorafe, the final categorised climb of the stage.

Lutsenko again took the mountains points ahead of O’Connor and López in third.

However, the leading 14 riders were working faultlessly together, and the margin kept increasing up to 3:25 with 30 rolling kilometres remaining.

Inside the last 20 kilometres attacks started from the leading group with Lutsenko going clear along with O’Connor and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Victorious) before Yates and Cristián Rodríguez (TotalEnergies) charged across.

However, that move was soon caught as the breakaway battled it out for the stage and overall honours.

Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) countered that initial attack and was joined by Lutsenko while the remains of the breakaway argued about working together.

The pair had a lead of 29 seconds over the chasers with 12 kilometres to the finish in Baza and as the chasers attacked each other the group fractured and then reformed.

Poels led into the finish and had enough to fend off the sprint from Lutsenko to take the stage victory and the leader’s jersey into the fifth and final stage tomorrow.