Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) powered to the sprint victory on stage 4 of Tour Colombia. He held off Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) at the line for the victory. Nelson Soto (Petrolike) completed the podium in third in the flat, fast finish in Zipaquirá.
From the peloton led by Astana with 3km go, Petrolike’s Jose Ramon Muñiz launched a solo attack. He glanced back passing under the 1km mark and fell in line behind a line of Astana riders, which delivered Cavendish for the win.
The Manxman reversed his fortunes from the opening stage, finishing third to Gaviria in Duitama. It is the second stage win for Astana at Tour Colombia, Harold Tejada winning on Wednesday in Santa Rosa de Viterbo for the team's first victory of the season.
"I feel really happy, that was super nice, it was incredible work by my teammates in the final and the last sprint was incredible," Cavendish said at the finish. "When you see that sprint through and how the boys worked, you can see how I wanted to ride one more year. The work from my boys, and from Movistar as well, to bring myself and Fernando [Gaviria] back into contention was incredible. I’m super, super happy with it."
Astana was attentive to moves all day on Friday, including a late breakaway in the final 30km, while Nu Colombia held steady in the peloton to project race leader Rodrigo Contreras.
Contreras completed stage 4 in the peloton on the heels of the sprinters and swapped his purple Nu Colombia kit for the yellow leader’s jersey for a second day.
A late breakaway of Julián Cardona (Team Medellín), Laureano Rosas (Swift Carbon Pro Cycling Brasil) and Alexander Gil (Orgullo Paisa) took their chances into a headwind and moved clear by 43 seconds with 27km to go. The final third of the stage had left the mountainous terrain behind after the final KOM at Alto del Sisga and it was only flat roads through farming communities headed to Zipaquirá.
Gil was the first to relent from the front as Cardona and Rosas cooperated to hold a 20-second gap with 12km to go, a few looks revealing the peloton in full flight. Movistar was massed behind Nu Colombia with 7.3km to go and had the catch almost in hand on a small rise on the wide road. The duo resisted for another kilometre before the bigger teams took over.
How it happened
Stage 4 of the Tour Colombia was always likely to be race of two distinct parts. The opening phase from Paipa took the peloton through some rugged terrain, culminating in the 2,866m-high Alto Sisga, ahead of a fast drop onto the altopiano that led to Egan Bernal's hometown of Zipaquirá.
Bernal's sometime training partner Óscar Sevilla (Medellín) was the stage's lone non-starter. The 47-year-old, who began a new life in Colombia after Operación Puerto effectively ended his career in Europe, had shone on stage 2 to Santa Rosa de Viterbo. A heavy crash in the finale of stage 3 to Tunja, however, ended his race on the eve of the summit finish atop the Alto del Vino.
The opening stanza of the stage was animated by a break of nine riders. Brayan Sánchez (Team Medellín), Efren Santos (Canels), Franklin Revelo (Saitel), Carlos Parra (Saitel), Kevin Castillo (Sistecrédito), Danny Osorio (Orgullo), Juan Diego Alba (Colombia), Bayron Guamá (Ecuador) and Steven Haro (Ecuador) had a lead of 3:40 over the Alto del Moral, but it had already started to contract by the team they crested the Alto Viquemada.
The Nu Colombia team of yellow jersey Rodrigo Contreras were prominent early on, but Davide Persico's Bingoal WB squad came to the fore over the Alto Sisga, where Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan) and Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) were in difficulty at the rear of the peloton.
Cavendish was distanced with 76km remaining, but the Manxman had a strong complement of Astana teammates around him, including Kazakhstani champion Alexey Lutsenko, who has looked strikingly comfortable at high altitude this week. They kept the gap to manageable dimensions on the climb and gradually managed to work their way back up to the peloton, with Cavendish rejoining the fray with a shade under 40km to go.
By then, the last of the early escapees had been swept up and a bunch finish looked inevitable, but that didn't dissuade further attacks as the kilometres ticked down towards Zipaquirá. Julián Cardona (Medellín), Laureano Rosas (Swift Carbon) and Alex Gil (Orgullo Paisa) stole clear on the run-in, and the trio carried an advantage just shy of a minute from 27km. Across the next 15km their effort extinguished.
Results
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