Vuelta a Burgos: Aranburu wins stage 4

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Alex Aranburu (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) won stage 4 of Vuelta a Burgos, triumphing on the uphill finish in Ciudad Romana de Clunia to take the team’s second victory of the race.

The UAE Team Emirates pair of Aleksandr Riabushenko and Rui Costa took second and third, trailing in Aranburu’s wake as the Basque rider celebrated across the line.

Aranburu powered to the front in the closing 200 metres of the stage, leaving Jhonathan Narvaez (Team Ineos) and Richard Carapaz (Movistar) behind as the road flattened out after the climb. Once he got a gap, there was no catching him, and the 23-year-old took his second win of the season at the Roman colony in Clunia.

"We completed a perfect stage," said Aranburu after the finish. "The whole team has supported me in the approach to Clunia. Cristián [Rodríguez] and Sergei [Chernetski] have been very close to protect me. I knew we had to make a hard climb to have more options and it came out as we had planned. The end suited Aberasturi and me, although it is true that more to me than to him. I asked him to set the pace, he did it and everything went perfectly.

"In the first stage I almost won, in the second one Aberasturi did it and today we were able to achieve the victory again. Two out of three is very good. Neila is a very beautiful stage, also looking forward to the Vuelta a España. We will give it all and try it."

Iván Sosa (Ineos) kept his lead of 17 seconds over Óscar Rodríguez (Euskadi-Murias), with Pedrero in third at 24 seconds. Carapaz moved into fourth as Ineos' David de la Cruz was dropped.

How it unfolded

As with the opening two stages of the race, the 175km-long stage 4 was rolling and flat for the most part, once again finished off with an uphill finish. Aside from the finish, the main obstacle of the day came midway through – the third-category climb of the Alto del Majadal.

Early on, a break of six riders made it away. Ángel Madrazo (Burgos-BH) and Simon Pellaud (IAM Excelsior) both made the break for the second day in succession.

The pair were joined out front by Alexis Renard (Israel Cycling Academy), Jimmy Turgis (Vital Concept-B&B Hotels), Antonio Puppio (Kometa Cycling Team), Ibai Azurmendi and Asier Etxebarria (both Fundación Euskadi).

With little chance of making it away to the line, the six riders got a maximum advantage of 3:30 as a number of different teams worked on the front of the peloton. Pellaud, who was busy collecting mountain points on stage 3, led over the Majadal.

The break stayed together until they reached the final 15km of the stage, at which point Pellaud and Renard went up the road, hanging on to slim hopes of a stage victory.

With the peloton lurking 30 seconds behind, their time out front was, of course, numbered. Renard was the last man standing, though both men were eventually absorbed by the peloton 6km from the line.

Team Ineos and Movistar took over the pacemaking shortly afterward, later putting Narvaez and Carapaz up front midway up the climb. The pair looked set to contest the win, but ran out of steam as the road flattened. Aranburu unleashed his sprint, blowing past his competitors and sealing his team’s seventh win of the season.

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