This was the day the climbers and GC riders had been waiting for. After a time trial and two relatively flat stages, there was a decent climb for the grimpeurs to get their teeth into on stage 4 of Tirreno Adriatico – and a summit finish. BORA-hansgrohe’s Rafał Majka pushed hard throughout the stage, the Polish national road champion using the stage to test his form ahead of the Grand Tours he will be targeting this season, the team working well to deliver him to the day’s decisive climb.
Last year’s edition of the race was forced to forego its Queen Stage, owing to dangerous weather conditions, with snow rendering the stage’s climbs impassable, which completely changed the outcome of the GC. This year, there was no way the weather over the 187km parcours would stop the riders with GC victory in their sights, meaning there was everything to race for today. An early climb to La Colonnetta would whet the riders’ appetites and warm up their climbing legs, while the stage’s finale on the Terminillo would give them a chance to make their mark on the race.
Almost from the drop of the flag, the attacks came, with a six-man break heading up the road early on. The GC riders wouldn’t want them to gain too much of an advantage, but in spite of this allowed the escapees more than six minutes – confident they would be able to pull them back in later in the day. Peaking at more than ten minutes, this led to some urgency from the peloton, who steadily started reducing the gap after 100km of racing. The break’s advantage dropped relentlessly, to six minutes, to a minute and a half – the peloton mercilessly mopping up riders – and finally, with only the Terminillo to race, the break was all but caught. With 13km to go, the race was really on.
At 9km to go, a gentle reduction in the gradient gave a few riders the chance to go on the attack, but the peloton held off trying to shut the break down, sitting and waiting until closer to the summit before making their move. With a little under 6km remaining, this was when the peloton took action, as the terrain became colder and snow appeared in clumps at the roadside. A confident attack from Nairo Quintana took the stage win.
After a strong push throughout the day, when the attacks came, BORA-hansgrohe’s Rafał Majka found that he just didn’t have the legs to respond. The Polish national road champion was using the rolling Italian hills to build his form after the comparatively flat Abu Dhabi Tour, as he explained after the stage. “Our strategy today was for me to go for the stage win, and it was executed according to plan. Thanks to the great work of my teammates, I was well positioned at the bottom of the final and decisive climb, but with 4km to go to the finish, my legs simply couldn’t keep up with the pace. I didn’t have the power to respond to the various attacks, but I am not dissatisfied with my form. We are still in early March and my goals are usually further ahead in the season, so at this time of the year, I’m still building my form. We worked well as a team, and that’s positive for the coming races.”
Directeur Sportif, Enrico Poitschke, was happy with how the day unfolded. “The race was what we planned. We had our eye on making sure no big groups went in the beginning and that worked well. We stayed together and saved energy for the final climb, then we brought Rafał and Pavel into a good position on the climb. Rafał felt good the first 10km, but in the last 2km he had difficulty keeping pace with the faster guys on the front. This wasn’t unexpected though, and we’re looking ahead to tomorrow’s stage.”
Tomorrow’s route from Rieti to Fermo takes place over 209km of rolling terrain. The first 100km is a gentle climb and descent, but on the second half of the stage the parcours becomes increasingly choppy – sapping the energy from the riders’ legs. The final kilometre sees a 22% ramp before a 10% climb to the finish – this could prove the perfect launchpad for a late attack.
