Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2025 Stage 4

February 8, 2025 The GC is tight and today is likely the last chance to make a change. Leaving from the seaside at Oropesa Del Mar, the profile only seems to go up as the riders head inland to the finish at Portell de Morella. There is 3,700M of elevation but the main climbs are front loaded so the finale may not be as selective as in previous days but the final kilometer is uphill and will be tricky to control for the bonus seconds. José Félix Parra of Equipo Kern Pharma, Hugo Houle of Israel-Premier Tech, and Jon Agirre of Euskaltel-Euskadi got away at the start and had a maximum advantage of 8 minutes but that was down to 3 minutes 20 seconds with 80KM to go. Lenny Martinez of Bahrain Victorious and Davide Piganzoli of Polti-VisitMalta tried to get away on the final categorized climb of Alto de Vistabella del Maestrat. They were caught but Pablo Castrillo of Movistar did get away and was able to bridge to Agirre, the last man remaining from the break at around 59KM to go and gap of 1 minute 15 seconds on the peloton. Even though the main climbs were completed, the roads were constantly twisting with plenty of up and downs, making it all the more difficult to form a chase. Despite UAE-XRG's best effort, Castrillo had pulled the gap out to 1 minute 50 seconds on the bunch that still had some pure sprinters within. Agirre gave everything to hang with Castrillo for as long as possible but had to pull the plug on a rise outside of Mosqueruela with 39KM to go. Jayco AlUla and Lidl-Trek pitched in at the front of the peloton with 35KM to go to bring down the 90 seconds to Castrillo. Castrillo retained 30 seconds with 15KM to go but the front of the peloton was getting crowded with teams moving up to position for the sprint to the line. It was a brave fight for Castrillo but the game was up with 9.3KM to go. Just one kilometer later, Jefferson Cepeda of Movistar attacked and the bunch exploded with only about 20 riders remaining. UAE-XRG and Bahrain Victorious set a pace and held it at 15 seconds. Lidl-Trek took up the charge with 2KM to go with Jakob Söderqvist pulling and Jonathan Milan on the wheel. Söderqvist put the power down with 700M to go which caused splits in the group. Söderqvist caught and passed Cepeda but Santiago Buitrago of Bahrain Victorious came with speed on the 8% section. It turned out that Söderqvist went too long and started pedaling squares 400M from the line. Buitrago accelerated and stormed to victory. Milan and Söderqvist came in 6 seconds later for second and third but the story on the line was the 10 seconds back to race leader João Almeida. Be it legs or positioning, Almeida did not follow Buitrago and it cost him the GC. Buitrago now leads Almeida by 18 seconds with only a flat race around Valencia to go tomorrow.