Stage four of the Vuelta San Juan saw the riders face the second-longest stage of this year’s edition. The peloton had to climb from 800 to more than 2200 altitude metres in the first half of the 196.5 kilometre long stage, before a long descent and a slight and steady false flat towards the finish.
After the start, 16 riders went clear to build the breakaway of the day, including Tobias Lund Andresen, who was wearing the jersey for the best young rider for the third day in a row. The group got a maximum advantage of seven minutes and ten seconds before the peloton increased the pace towards the top of the climb and decreased the gap quickly. While they caught the break with around 70 kilometres to go, not all riders were able to follow the high pace, and the bunch was already reduced to only around 50 riders.
Jonas Hvideberg helped to keep the pace high before the team focused on the reduced bunch sprint. After spending the first part of the stage on the attack, Tobias would help set up the sprint for Niklas Märkl in a good way. Märkl sprinted to a solid top five result, rounding off the nice teamwork throughout the whole stage and letting the team go into tomorrow’s rest day with a good result in the pocket. Meanwhile, Tobias has moved up to sixth in the GC and takes the jersey for the best young rider into the rest day.
