Vernon's strong sprint seals victory on altered Volta a Catalunya stage 4

Ethan Vernon (NSN) powered to victory on an altered stage 4 of the Volta a Catalunya in Camprodón. 

The British sprinter was well-positioned by his NSN teammates and was the first rider into the final corner with around 250 metres remaining, with race leader Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) locked on his wheel. 

In the end, Vernon had plenty of power and was able to withstand the Frenchman to take the victory with Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) rounding out the stage podium. 

It’s Vernon’s second victory of 2026, adding to his WorldTour victory on stage 4 of the Santos Tour Down Under. This also marks Vernon's third win in Catalunya in total, having won stages in 2022 and 2025, the former being his first professional victory.

Godon remains the race leader, but Pidcock, who started the day in 3rd overall at 0:16, picked up nine bonus seconds on the stage, moving past Evenepoel into 2nd and closing the gap in the GC to 0:13. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) claimed three bonus seconds on the stage as well and sits at 0:14 with Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) in 4th at 0:24.

What was initially expected to be the first summit finish of the race did not come to fruition. Due to strong winds, the route for stage 4 had to be shortened in distance, and the planned summit finish at Vallter 2000 was removed, meaning it would be another stage set to favour the fast finishers in Camprodón

There were two riders on the DNS list, but neither rider was named Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who was a doubt following his crash at the end of stage 3. The Belgian was deemed fit, with the duo of non-starters being Ivo Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Matthew Fox (Lotto-Intermarché).

Evenepoel shook off any early doubts about his shape and motivation by taking three bonus seconds at the first intermediate sprint, with Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) picking up two seconds. 

The final two riders standing from the breakaway, Samuel Fernández (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Mehawi Kudus (Burgos Burpellet BH) were caught by the peloton with just under 20km to go until the finish. 

Pidcock rocketed his way to three more bonus seconds at the next intermediate sprint with 14km remaining, with Simone Gualdi on his wheel. Florian Lipowitz and Lenny Martinez jumped across to the duo following the sprint, but were quickly reeled in by the peloton as nobody wanted to commit to an attack. 

There was a crash with 11km remaining involving Derek Gee (Lidl-Trek) and Bart Lemmen (Visma | Lease a Bike), but both riders were quickly back on their feet and up and running again soon after. Another crash occurred with 5km remaining involving Anthon Charmig (Uno-X Mobility) and Michael Leonard (EF Education-EasyPost), but once more, both riders were able to continue. 

Meanwhile, up front, the teams battled for position on a wide road, with race leader Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) well positioned. Under the flamme rouge, NSN, Lotto-Intermarché and UAE Team Emirates-XRG all found themselves in a strong position.