An untimely gust of wind on the weather-blighted stage 4 of O Gran Camiño saw Neilson Powless crash out when leading the stage.
The EF Education-EasyPost racer had been heading a solo breakaway move in the opening hour, team sources told Cyclingnews, but the crash saw him skid off course and suffer some minor road rash injuries. He later abandoned.
Powless had been on the hunt for his first win of the season, but on a stage when winds reached speeds of up to 80kph in places and very heavy rain fell for most of the day, the American was forced to throw in the towel.
Due to the brutal weather conditions on stage 4 of O Gran Camiño, the peloton tackled the final climb of Monte Aloia just once rather than taking in the planned double ascent. For a third straight day, victory went to overall winner Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike).
“Neilson was leading the break, he’d gone solo in the first hour and was holding out there really well, but he then crashed when he caught by a gust of wind and he went off the road,” EF Education-EasyPost sports director Tom Southam told Cyclingnews.
“He span out on a corner, suffered a bit of road rash, and unluckily he went into a large pool of standing water when he fell and got very wet.
“He got caught by the group, but given he was not feeling great, so we thought under the circumstances it was better he stop at the team bus and not do the whole final climb.”
Talking to Cyclingnews at the stage 4 start, by which point in the race, he was lying 31st overall, Powless said he had come into 2024 feeling good and on the hunt for a Classics win.
Fifth in the Tour of Flanders last spring, the 27-year-old has a very full set of one-day races to come including the Belgian cobbled Classics and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Much further into the season, he is hoping to be able to take part in the Maryland Classic in the USA and improve on his second place of 2023.
“I think for a rider like myself, you have to cast a wide net and hopefully one lands,” Powless said. “I’ll be taking a stab at quite a few and starting with Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo and Dwars Door Vlaanderen. Any of them would be incredible, hopefully I’m in the right place and I can capitalize on that.”
His winter went well, Powless said. “I made some good progress, unfortunately the legs haven’t matched the results here, but I think that’s just how it goes when you’re racing in extreme temperatures like this.”
Powless added that he would be looking to keep his top form all the way through the Ardennes. “If I’m going to try to win a race, I can’t put all my eggs in one basket. I’ve got to try in every race I go to,” he said. “The Vismas have a super-strong team, you just have to try to take advantage by going early before they feel that they need to react and look for every opportunity.”
