Sam Bennett has claimed his favouritism to take the fourth stage of the Vuelta, the first and one of the few pure sprinter stages. The stage was ridden at an average of almost 50Km/h which is an indicator on how nervous the day was with echelons being taken into consideration, but they didn't happen leaving the sprinters to battle between themselves on a technical finish where as I expected Philipsen tried to take advantage of the tight turns at the finish and launched early, which was a brilliant move but not enough to hold and surging Sam Bennett. Mareczko took third place and the overall remains the same.
Positive: Bennett taking his win, have to give it to Philipsen aswell he almost took what would be a perfect win out of the pocket. Thijssen a very nice surprise in the sprint with 5th.
Negative: Nothing to note.
The Route
You have here a playbook stage for a breakaway. However you never know, with so few opportunities for the sprinters we can have a surprise. The climbs however aren't easy to chase, the Alto de Vio (58.5Km to the finish) and the Alto del Fanlo (47.5Km to the finish) could break things appart, see attacks in front, but the main launchpad for everyone looking to attack in the the next climb.
Not a rough one but the start is definetely more than most sprinters can handle if the pace is high, The Alto de Petralba is a climb of two halves, attacks are possible, riders dropped aswell, it summits with only 17.5Km to the finish.
Afterwards the approach ot the finish is mostly descending, but the final bit of the final kilometer is quite hard with some rough gradients.
The Weather
Small breeze from the southeast is what the riders will face, there may be some damp roads as temperatures will be near freezing at night,
The Favourites
This isn't an easy day to predict, still very early in the race lots of riders are looking to fight for a good GC place and some aren't yet on their best legs, some haven't shown their form much, so it comes as a bit of a lottery if the breakaway is successful, the start is flattish however no pan-flat so it should allow some lighter riders to go in front specially as by logic there shouldn't be any team really controlling this, this is the "Michael Matthews wins the sprint from the peloton" kind of day.
Now if we were to imagine a weird but possible scenario where Movistar would chase for the possibility of a sprint sure, we can expect some names like Valverde and Roglic to fight for bonus seconds, possibly a win, but I reckon that in the low chance a peloton makes it it can fall for an elusive attacker like Luis Leon Sanchez or Mattia Cataneo who have been showing good form. I would expect more punchy riders like Andrea Bagioli or Alex Aranburu to play a part, and then riders like Remi Cavagna, Tim Wellens or Magnus Cort could do it from both scenarios. I have to say it would be an interesting stage to be played like that, not a combination we see often.
However the real focus of this day should be for those part of an early attack, some of the big contenders are already mentioned above specially as some are not a part of the overall fight, Rui Costa looks good and seemed to have shed some time on stage 3 so he'll definetely be on my radar specially taking into account the Portuguese must be after the brutal Giro that's still being incredibly successful, you have more pure climbers and puncheurs in men like Robert Power, Kevin Inkelaar, Omair Fraile, some rouleurs like Michael Valgren, Bruno Armirail or Nans Peters, some puncheurs like Jonathan Hivert, Quentin Jauregui or Robert Stannard who can also sprint, and Julien Simon is finally my last name.
Whatever happens it should be an interesting stage, I expect a good fight from the breakaway but if it comes to a peloton finish there's also lots of possibilities and riders to consider.
Prediction Time
⭐ Valverde, R.Costa, Fraile, Hivert, Simon, Jauregui ,Wellens
It isn't easy to say what will happen tomorrow. My call is for Bruno Armirail, he's a rider I've been watching very close since the begining of the year and I know he has the legs to pull something big, tomorrow's stage probably won't have a high quality group because of the amount of riders looking to get in and the flat start, but he should have no problem if he wants, he's a strong rouleur who can do this type of climb very well, I know plenty other riders can, but it's about the instinct here.
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