Romandie, stage 4: Roglic takes stage with a sprint and retains GC lead

Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) marked a flurry of attacks on the summit finish of Saturday’s shortened queen stage and outsprinted his GC rivals to take victory. Rui Costa (UAE-Team Emirates) took second and Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos) came third.

“It was a hard stage. I lost the sprint yesterday, so I wanted to try and win today,” said Roglic.

The stage was set to weigh in at a hefty 173km, but with the threat of snow on the early climbs, the Col des Mosses was cut from the route, taking out around 70km of racing. The mountainous stage still included the category one summit finish, the 10.5km climb to Torgons, that averaged 6.8 percent.

An eight-man breakaway formed early in the race, and as the decisive Torgons climb approached, were down to 1:20 ahead. As the climb bit, the escape group fragmented, with Dani Martinez (EF-Education First) and Alexis Gougegard (AG2R-La Mondiale) going clear. The pair held a lead of over one minute over the reduced peloton, which still included leader’s jersey-wearing Roglic, second place David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), and GC contenders Thomas and Rui Costa.

As the climb progressed, the inclement weather worsened, with rain falling heavily. Winner Anacona (Movistar) and Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin) attacked from the peloton first. Martinez and Gougegard remained out front as Anacona and Spilak formed a small chase group with breakaway survivors Simon Pellaud and Roland Thalmann (both Switzerland).

However, with Ineos setting the pace in the peloton behind, working for GC man Thomas, the riders at the front of the race were caught with five kilometers remaining. Gaudu attacked from the GC group first, but Roglic, mindful of maintaining his GC lead, gave him no breathing space. The race-leader’s teammate Steven Kruijswijk came to the assistance of Roglic, driving on the front and looking to wear down the ever-reducing lead group.

With 2km to go, Hugh Carthy (EF-Education First) launched a strong attack, but Roglic was again quick to respond, with Thomas going with him. Michael Woods (EF-Education First) pulled the group back up to the leaders, before Carthy and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) both made short-lived attacks.

However, the group came into the final run to the line together, and Roglic was able to out-kick his rivals to take the win, with Rui Costa taking second and Thomas third.

Roglic takes a 12-second GC lead over Rui Costa into Sunday’s final stage, a 16.8km time trial around Geneva.