Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) took victory on the Queen stage 4 of the Tour de Romandie, outsprinting João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) atop the 20km climb to Thyon 2000 to also take the race lead.
The pair had attacked an already select group to go away in the final 4km, and were closely matched on the final slopes, with only half a wheel in the final sprint.
Stage 2 winner Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana) took third on the day, just ahead of Almeida’s teammate Jay Vine, with the Italian moving into second overall.
The key action all unfolded in the final 8km of the 20km climb, with Bahrain Victorious and UAE Team Emirates-XRG setting a high pace before Vine and Almeida attacked to draw out a select group with Martinez and Fortunato.
Four became two when Martinez and Almeida pushed on and battled for the victory. Martinez now leads the GC with only one stage remaining, though Almeida is very much still in contention, three seconds back ahead of Sunday’s final time trial.
“It was a super long climb, so here you just have to try to not go too deep for too long, otherwise you can get tired very quickly,” Martinez said at the finish.
“It was really hard, but we rode really well as a pair, and in the end I had the punch to beat João Almeida, but he was really strong too, so I’m really happy to win here today for the team.
“I didn’t want to go ahead alone, and I think they [UAE] were trying to distance the Astana rider for the GC, so that benefited me a bit. They set a good pace, so he was distanced, and then I went with João, and we rode super strong.”
Leader at the start of the day, Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) said goodbye to the yellow jersey after dropping early on the climb and the GC was completely shaken up by the top of the climb, with the top three riders now within three seconds of each other but bigger gaps after that.
The losers of the day included the still-recovering Remco Evenepoel, who opted to work for his teammate and best young rider Junior Lecerf instead of his own interests on the Queen stage, and though Lecerf dropped three places on GC, assistance from Evenepoel does mean he keeps the white jersey.
Even after over 4,000m of climbing on stage 4, the race is not over yet, and will be decided by stage 5’s 17km time trial around Geneva.
How it unfolded
Stage 4 of the Tour de Romandie featured five categorised climbs, but the first four were really just a warm-up for the final 20.2km ascent up to Thyon 2000, set to be the most decisive finish of the race so far.
On the first climb, a 14.5km steady ascent up to Anzère, a three-man group got away with relative ease, made up of Louis Barré (Intermarché-Wanty), Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek) and mountains classification leader Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe), in pursuit of more mountain points before the final climb.
They were allowed to build up a gap, but nothing too substantial, as UAE Team Emirates-XRG did much of the work to control things and keep the leaders within reach. The situation remained calm and controlled for most of the first 80km of the stage, with Zwiehoff accomplishing his aim of winning the KoM points, enough to ensure he will take home the jersey as long as he finishes the race on Sunday.
On the descent after the penultimate climb to Suen, Zwiehoff duly sat up to wait for the peloton, allowing Barré and Bernard to push on but with their gap shrinking as the race approached the base of Thyon 2000.
The pair started the climb still 45 seconds ahead of the peloton, though Barré was soon dropped, leaving Bernard to push on ahead of the peloton led by Lotto and Bahrain Victorious.
Heading into the last 15km, race leader Alex Baudin was one of the first riders to be dropped, and with very few riders to support him and try to limit his losses, his time in the yellow jersey was over.
With just under 14km to go, Bernard was swept up by the peloton, but what remained of the bunch – around 35 riders – stayed controlled as Lotto continued to lead the way, working for Lennert Van Eetvelt.
Heading into the final 8km, an injection of pace from Bahrain Victorious saw the group start to shrink more quickly, with various riders suffering, including the Soudal-QuickStep duo of Evenepoel and white jersey wearer Junior Lecerf as the Belgian tried to help his younger teammate.
Hearing Evenepoel was off the back, Almeida and Jay Vine started to pace for UAE Team Emirates, dragging out a very select group alongside Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana) and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious).
It was Vine who set the pace up the climb, before Almeida pushed on with 4km to go, taking Martinez with him, and the pair were playing a tactical game, testing each other without fully attacking.
Behind, Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) rejoined Vine and Fortunato, but even as a trio, the chasers weren’t making inroads into the leaders, with Vine not working, and the pair stayed ahead to fight for the win between them.
Results
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