Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team) came out on top on a shortened stage 4 of the Volta a Catalunya, outfoxing and outmuscling double stage winner Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) in a bunch sprint in Camprodón.
The stage had been set to signal the start of the mountains but high winds at the planned summit finish of Vallter 2000 forced the finish line to be moved into the valley, meaning another opportunity for the sprinters.
Despite Ineos Grenadiers doing the bulk of the work on the day, NSN nailed their lead-out with three riders on the front going into the final kilometre. Vernon hit the front from range but that was crucial in giving him the first position and the choice of line through a late chicane with 200 metres to go.
Godon, who’d locked onto the wheel, was unable to squeeze through at that point and unable to get around in the relatively short home straight that remained after it.
Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) was well positioned and sprinted to third place, on a day where he took a total of nine bonus seconds across the intermediate and final sprints.
Godon is still the overall leader, but Pidcock’s advances saw him jump above Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and into second place on GC, 13 seconds down. Evenepoel looked in good shape despite his heavy crash in the previous day’s finale, even taking three bonus seconds of his own by beating Pidcock to the first intermediate sprint.
"It hadn't gone to plan for us the first three days, then we were gifted another opportunity last night. The boys really committed, and this means an extra lot for everyone because it wasn't meant to be today," Vernon said.
"We wanted to control it for a sprint. In the end quite a small breakaway went and that played into my favour as it meant the day was a bit slower than normal. We didn't have to chase the break as hard. It played into the hands of the fast men at the end and we made the most of it."
How it unfolded
The peloton set out for the shortened stage 4 of the Volta a Catalunya having to improvise race strategies for the new 151km route that featured more than 2,000 metres of elevation gain but no major climbs in the finale, meaning a sprint finish was the likeliest outcome.
The only two categorised climbs came within the first 45km and provoked an attacking, fluid start to proceedings, in contrast to the calm that came later.
The first main breakaway was made up of five riders: Maxime Decomble (Groupama-FDJ United), Mats Wenzel (Kern Pharma), Unai Aznar (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Jose Luis Faura (Burgos-Burpellet-BH) and Samuel Florez (Modern Adventure). They stayed away to the top of the Coll de Parpers (3km at 5%), where Faura claimed maximum points, but they were soon caught on the descent.
The first intermediate sprint, coming just 19km into the stage, had something to do with that, and it brought several GC men to the fore. The ever-active Evenepoel, looking spritely despite his stage 3 crash, hit out and grabbed three bonus seconds as the first across the line, with Pidcock second with two bonus seconds.
Fresh attacks soon came and a new breakaway of four riders was formed by mountains classification leader Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarche), Merhawi Kudus (Burgos-Burpellet-BH), Samuel Fernández (Euskaltel-Euskadi), and Koen Bouwman (Jayco-AlUla).
By the time they reached the top of the day’s second climb, the Alt de Sant Feliu de Codines (9.8km at 4%), they had 2:30 in hand. However, they were about to have two fewer riders in hand, as Veistroffer, whose job was done after collecting the mountains points, sat up and drifted back towards the bunch along with Bouwman.
A much quieter middle portion of the race ensued. There was a brief counter attack from three riders but they never made it across to the break and, after Fernández led the race through the second intermediate sprint with 60km to go, the race entered a holding pattern.
Ineos Grenadiers took control of the peloton, with some help from Uno-X, and they kept the two leaders dangling just ahead of them for the best part of 40km.
An injection of pace came ahead of the third and final intermediate sprint with just under 20km to go, which saw the breakaway neutralised and the peloton split. Pidcock was once again to the fore and even clipped away in a four-man split before out-sprinting Simoni Gualdi (Intermarché-Lotto) to the line to help himself to three more bonus seconds.
When two big names in Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) jumped across to Pidcock and Gualdi, it looked for a moment like the race could take on the sort of script-ripping element we saw on stage 3, but Pidcock couldn’t be tempted by the offer to push on, and the move came to nothing.
That left a straight-forward run-in to the finish, albeit marked by a few small crashes. Ineos’ Bob Jungels led the way to the final kilometre but Ineos then ran out of numbers, putting Godon on the wheel of Vernon, whose NSN teammates hit the front.
Intermarché-Lotto surged forward on the uphill drag inside the final kilometre but NSN held firm, delivering Vernon in first place into the chicane, and he had the strength to see it through.
Results
Results powered by FirstCycling
