Malucelli upsets pre-race favourite Milan with sprint victory on stage 4 at AlUla Tour

Matteo Malucelli (XDS Astana) pipped the pre-race favourite Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) to win stage 4 of the AlUla Tour in a sprint finish.

The 32-year-old Italian positioned himself in the prime position on the wheel of Milan in the sprint, and when the pre-race favourite was unable to get out of the saddle in the headwind finish, Malucelli was able to find enough reserves to power ahead to take the stage win.

Milan had to settle for second, having won two stages already, whilstFrits Biesterbos (Picnic PostNL) ended the sprint in third.

Malucelli was a prolific winner in 2025 with eight victories, all of which came in Asia, and the Italian has added another on the same continent. It’s also the second victory of XDS Astana’s 2026 season, added to fellow Italian Christian Scaroni’s success at the Clàssica Camp de Morvedre.

A large sixteen-man breakaway formed on what was the longest stage of the race at 173.4km in length, but the group would be reeled in by the peloton long before the finale.

Zeb Kyffin (Terengganu) launched an attack with 14km remaining, and the British rider quickly built a gap of over 30 seconds, but he was caught shortly afterwards when the pace began to ramp up towards the third bunch sprint of the race.

Modern Adventure took the lead inside 2km to the finish, with Lidl-Trek positioned further back. Bahrain-Victorious and Jayco AlUla were also well-positioned with their sprint trains with 1km to go.

Pascal Ackermann (Jayco AlUla) launched his sprint early, and Milan had to work his way to the front from an unfavourable position, which cost the Italian in the end, with Malucelli able to pass the Italian to take an impressive sprint victory.

Yannis Voisard (Tudor) finished safely inside the peloton to defend the race leader’s green jersey after his team had worked on the front of the peloton inside the final 10km to keep the race leader safe. The Swiss rider leads the general classification by 0:04 ahead of Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain-Victorious) and 0:06 over Sergio Higuita (XDS Astana), with one stage remaining.

The final stage on Saturday is set to be a crucial one for the general classification battle, with the steep Harrat Uwayrid climb set to split the race apart.