Astana`s Miguel Angel Lopez was the main protagonist of stage 4 at the Tour Colombia 2.1 on Friday, jumping into a breakaway on the first lap of a six-lap circuit race in Medellin and gobbling up eight seconds worth of time bonuses on his general classification rivals. But it was the successful late attack of stage 4 winner Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-QuickStep) that upended the applecart, with the time bonuses for the winner and his third-placed teammate Julian Alaphilippe pushing the pair into first and second overall, respectively. The QuickStep duo now sit ahead of three riders from EF Education First: overnight leader Rigoberto Uran, Dani Martinez and Lawson Craddock. The finish of stage 4 in Medellin was chaotic, to say the least, as the race`s top sprinters were dropped from contention, leaving a bevy of climbers and all-rounders to fight out the sprint finish.ADVERTISEMENT `That was definitely a difficult finish,` said Craddock, who was involved in the finale for EF Education first, working to protect GC men Martinez and Uran. `All day it wasn`t too crazy. Of course we made up for it in the last little bit. Once you get rid of all the sprinters and it`s just a bunch of climbers, no one knows exactly how to do that or what their role is for the sprint.` Once Lopez, who started the day 12th overall just 22 seconds behind Uran, made the break on the first lap, it was up to EF to keep the move in check. The gap never went much beyond two minutes thanks to the work on the front of the peloton by the team`s Alex Howes and Taylor Phinney.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
|
