Ben Turner powers to Vuelta sprint win as Gaudu jumps into red

An emotional Ben Turner took an outstanding sprint win on stage 4 of the Vuelta España on Tuesday.

The Ineos Grenadiers rider timed his effort to perfect on the uphill finish in Voiron, hitting the front 75m from the line to win ahead of Japser Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), with the Belgian’s teammate and compatriot Edward Plankaert in third place. 

With plenty of climbing early on in the stage, the race was not always destined to finish in a bunch kick, but with the majority of the climbing done with more than the 90km to go, there was little ambition to split the race up.

As they had on stage 3, Lidl-Trek did much of the pace setting throughout the day, while Alpecin-Deceuninck played a patient game, hitting the front only in the final kilometre, but Ineos were subtle in their support of Turner, hitting the front only when they needed to.

Groupama-FDJ played the final as if they were trying to win with a sprinter, but their efforts paid off, David Gaudu moving into the overall lead by dint of his 25th place in the stage.

Turner’s win was all the more sweet as the British rider was a late call up for the Vuelta, and had raced the opening two days of the Renewi Tour before getting the call to head to Italy to start his fifth Grand Tour, where Tuesday’s win was his first stage victory.

At last the Vuelta began to head home, the fourth stage starting in the Italian city of Susa before crossing the Alps into France for a flat finish in Voiron, 206.7km later.

Not only was it the longest stage of the entire three week race, with 2,919m of vertical ascent, it was also the hilliest day so far. It was, though, almost entirely downhill after the day’s highest point, the Col du Lauteret, which came with 130km remaining an many predicted a bunch sprint. 

But this is the Vuelta, and nothing is quite so simple. A short, sharp uncategorised climb inside the final 50km might have provided a useful springboard for some, and a slightly uphill finish certainly made for an interesting final.

With the race on, a small group got a gap almost straight away, though they were brought back and another five headed up the road afterwards. Louis Vervaeke (Soudal-Quickstep), Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural), Kamiel Bonneau (Intermarché-Wanty), Mario Aparicio (Burgos-Burpellet BH) and Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost) fresh from the stage three break, soon built a lead of 3:20.

That advantage endured the ascent of the Col du Montgenèvre, dropped a little on the long drag that is the Lauteret, but they reached the top with their lead still at three minutes. Here, Quinn attacked over the top, taking the mountains points and moving into second pace in that classification, behind Nicolau.

On the wide descent the gap began to tumble, Israel-Premier Tech and Alpecin-Deceuninck helping Lidl-Trek with the chase, and just after the race passed the bottom of the Alpe d’Huez climb, with 91km to go, the break were caught, though Aparicio resisted the longest.

A few kilometres later his Burgos-Burpellet BH team mate Sinuhé Fernández got away, though he was never allowed much more than 40 seconds and was caught on the small, unclassified climb 48km from the line.

With 32km to go, there was a brief battle for the intermediate sprint, with stage 3 winner David Gaudu (Group-FDJ) making an unsuccessful bid to take bonus seconds and move into the overall lead. Instead Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) made his points classification intentions clear, bagging maximum points before an almost inevitable late stage attack from Bruno Amirail (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale).

The French time trial champion took a lead of 40 seconds into the final 20km, though he was caught 5km later and the bunch seemed happy to close the day with a sprint.