CRO Race 2024 Stage 4

October 4, 2024 The start was dry for the Queen stage. 3,100M elevation gain waited for the riders, consisting of 3 categorized climbs including the HC Poklon climb and two trips up Labin, the second of which is the finish line. Baptiste Huyet of TDT-Unibet, Tord Gudmestad of Uno-X Mobility, Jacob Eriksson of Tudor Pro Cycling, Konrad Czabok of Mazowsze Serce Polski, and Tim Marsman of Metec - SOLARWATT formed the initial break of the day. They were caught early on and new break went which stayed out for much longer. Ryan Mullen of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Robert Stannard of Bahrain-Victorious, Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X Mobility, Hugo Aznar of Equipo Kern Pharma, and Marsman from the original break formed the new group which had 2 minutes 20 seconds with 66KM to go as they started the Poklon climb. The rain began fall near the bottom as UAE ramped up the pace and split the peloton on the climb. They cause a lot of damage, trimming the bunch down to around 20 riders but their pace isolated their leader Brandon McNulty forcing him to cover attacks by himself. Leknessund, Stannard, and Aznar crested the Poklon climb with 56KM to go but were just 30 seconds ahead of the GC group which was now only 10 riders. The race regrouped off the descent on the valley road to Labin. Aznar dropped back to the peloton leaving two up front with 35 seconds of a lead on swelling peloton of 35 riders with 32KM to go. Leknessund stopped pulling and the break was caught with 23KM to go. The race hit the 500M cobbled finish climb of Labin for the first time with 11.5KM to go. Pablo Castrillo of Equipo Kern Pharma tried to split the group on the plateau over the top but Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe stitched it back together. Ben Turner of Ineos went solo with 5KM to go but was dragged back at 2KM from the line. Bahrain-Victorious kept the pace high as they could manage and no one attacked until 300M to go when McNulty increased the pace. Fred Wright of Bahain-Victorious led briefly, then his teammate Edoardo Zambanini attacked and looked good for the stage win but at 50M to go, Tobias Lund Andresen of DSM-Firmenich came with momentum from behind to take the win. Zambanini took second with Odd Christian Eiking of Uno-X Mobility in third. McNulty kept his GC lead by 22 seconds over Andresen who moved up three spots to second.