Martens prevails on penultimate stage

Rabobank won for the second straight day at the Vuelta a Burgos as Paul Martens prevailed in the tough finale of stage 4, one day after teammate Matti Breschel triumphed on a similarly tough uphill finish. Martens emerged from a group of approximately 20 riders to win the 170km stage from Dona Santos to Cuidad Romana De Clunia. Race leader Daniel Moreno (Katusha) finished second, two seconds back, while Simon Clarke (Orica GreenEdge) outsprinted Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ-BigMat) and Stefano Garzelli (Acqua & Sapone) for third place, three seconds behind the Spaniard.

After an early escape was reeled in with 28km to go, strong crosswinds shattered the peloton into three groups with approximately 20 riders going clear at the head of affairs. Among those who made the selection were Martens, Robert Gesink and Matti Breschel (all Rabobank), Moreno, Joaquim Rodriguez and Angel Vicioso (all Katusha), Garzelli and Francesco Reda (both Acqua & Sapone), Clarke and Mitchell Docker (both Orica GreenEdge), Eros Capecchi and Daniele Ratto (both Liquigas-Cannondale), Alessandro De Marchi (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela), Thomas Damuseau, Yukihiro Doi and Johannes Frölingher (all Argos-Shomano), Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky), Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ-BigMat) and Jérémie Galland (Saur-Sojasun).

Race leader Daniel Moreno made the split, along with Matti Breschel who started the day in third overall at nine seconds. Notably absent from the lead group was Sergio Henao (Sky), who began the day second on general classification just two seconds behind Moreno. His Sky team as well as Euskaltel-Euskadi chased valiantly over the closing kilometers but couldn't cut the lead group's advantage under 15 seconds as they started the uphill finale with two kilometres to go.

Flecha made a late bid for victory, but Martens bridged to the Spaniard and pushed on alone for the stage win.

Moreno continues to lead overall, with Breschel second at 13 seconds and Garzelli third at 14 seconds. Henao dropped to 10th overall, now 32 seconds off the pace of the Katusha Spaniard.

For Martens, the stage victory was confirmation that he'd finally found a patch of good form after a frustrating start to the season. As was the case with Breschel the day prior, the victory was the first for Martens in nearly two years.

"My last win was in the GP Wallonia," said Martens. "That is quite a while ago. My spring season did not turn out the way I wished it had and at some point you start to doubt yourself tremendously. You really need success to get over it, but that is so very difficult. The same goes for Matti Breschel. You want it so badly, but there are so many factors playing a role."

Moreno won this stage the previous year and just fell short of repeating his victory, but his overall lead grew slightly heading into the final day.

"I'm a little disappointed for this second place, obviously I always want to win, but the main goal today was to gain some seconds over my rivals," said Moreno. "We managed to do so and I'm very happy about it. I knew this stage very well because I won here last year. Actually it was very windy so it was difficult to control, but Purito and my teammates did a great job for me.

"Now there just one stage left, I have a good gap but there are many good riders. Tomorrow it will be a very hard stage, so we have to be careful if we want to take the final victory in general classification."

The Vuelta a Burgos concludes on Sunday with its queen stage, covering 170km from Comarca Pinares to Lagunas de Neila. The stage finishes atop a hors categorie-rated ascent and features four categorised climbs packed into the final 38 kilometres.