Cycling: Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) has won the fourth stage of the Tour of Catalonia. The Spaniard completed an impressive demonstration by Movistar with the stage win and taking the overall lead. In the end, only Egan Arley Bernal (Sky), who was 16 years his junior, was able to follow him.
Valverde clever, Chaves brave, De Gendt powerless
After the yesterday's part due to the danger of avalanches, the queen stage of the Tour of Catalonia was on the program today. She led the professionals over 170,8 kilometers from Llanars to La Molina/Alp. On the way, two mountains of the first category and one mountain of the highest category had to be climbed. As it went up the Coll de la Creueta, leader Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) was no longer able to follow. The Belgian broke completely and was quickly more than ten minutes behind. Even before the start of the stage, De Gendt feared exactly this after losing so much strength yesterday. Quite different Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). The Spaniard secured three bonus seconds along the way. Up front, Mitchelton-Scott, in the person of Esteban Chaves, put the Movistar team under pressure. The little Colombian opened up a lead of over two minutes.
Movistar dominates but Bernal strong again
Even though the Mitchelton-Scott team put everything on one card, the Movistar team was not surprised. Valverde himself brought Chaves back with a short attack. In the final climb, Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) was the last escapee. The expected showdown took place on the final ascent in La Molina. Movistar literally flared fireworks, first sending Marc Soler forward before the two leaders, Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde, moved up. As expected, the peloton collapsed. With five kilometers to go, only Egan Arley Bernal (Sky) was able to match the pace of Valverde and Quintana. In the Movistar team, the roles were clearly assigned. Quintana attacked and was responsible for the high pace, while Valverde clamped onto Bernal's rear wheel and waited for the sprint. Since they couldn't shake Bernal, that's exactly what the uphill sprint happened. Quintana couldn't keep up but Valverde beat Bernal with all his experience. With this stage victory, Valverde also secured the leader's jersey and will probably decide the Tour of Catalonia for himself.
🇪🇸@alejanvalverde of 🇪🇸@Movistar_Team wins stage 4 of 🇪🇸@VoltaCatalunya #VoltaCatalunya pic.twitter.com/MWWD0TjoNX
— World Cycling Stats (@wcstats) March 22, 2018