Tour of the Alps 2024 Stage 4

April 18, 2024 Nearly 4000M of climbing awaited the riders on their way to Borgo Valsugana. A climbers group got away on the first mountain consisting of 11 riders. 2.5KM from the top of Passo Del Compet, Sergio Higuita of Bora-Hansgrohe and Simon Carr of EF-Education EasyPost attacked the other breakaway riders to go clear. Their lead on the peloton was just over a minute and a half with 57KM to go. Carr dropped Higuita 2KM into the Passo Del Vetriolo and had extended his lead another minute back to the Decathlon AG2R led peloton. Chris Harper of Jayco AlUla was first to move from the favorites group but Ben O'Connor of Decathlon AG2R countered and put the rest under pressure but could not get away. Numerous attacks continued until the top but they only managed to reduce the group. Nine riders, including Higuita who was caught by the chasers, went over the top of the Passo Del Vetriolo together, one minute behind Carr. Harper got over 20 seconds from the other chasers on the descent, but near the bottom, he got a corner wrong and took a heavy fall. O'Connor was next around the bend and crashed too. O'Connor was able to get back and join the other chasers but Harper would have to abandon. The 8 remaining chasers were not organized and did not want to work together which allowed Carr's gap to balloon to over two minutes with 18KM to go. A few dropped riders made it back to the first chase group, including Valentin Paret-Peintre of Decathlon AG2R and Michael Storer of Tudor Pro Cycling. Paret-Peintre attacked from the back of the group and immediately was gone. Juan Pedro López of Lidl-Trek and other GC favorites could not get organized to chase Paret-Peintre who started the day only 48 seconds out of the race lead. Lopez did take up the work and eventually pulled back Paret-Peintre, making a group of 7. Carr crossed the line for his long solo victory one minute and twenty two seconds ahead of the chase group. In the finale, O'Connor got away with Storer. Storer won the sprint for second and O'Connor got third, taking bonus seconds with a small gap back to Lopez and the others. Lopez retained the leaders jersey with O'Connor in second place, 38 seconds back.