Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) claimed a memorable victory on stage 4 at the Vuelta a España. The Dutchman won the bunch sprint ahead of Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) and Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo) in Molina de Aragón.
It was his first Grand Tour win since his life-threatening crash in last year’s Tour de Pologne.
The fourth stage of the Vuelta a España was 163.9km from El Burgo de Osma to Molina de Aragón. It was undulating terrain but there were no categorised climbs to contest and just one time bonus sprint at Alcolea Del Pinar.
An early breakaway of Carlos Canal and Angel Madrazo (Burgos-BH) and Joan Bou (Euskaltel-Euskadi) were reeled in with 13km to go, and Groupana-FDJ produced the strongest lead-out in the closing kilometres. Movistar, Bora-Hansgrohe, Ineos Grenadiers and Deceuninck-QuickStep also had a stake in the game with prominent sprinters or GC riders in the field.
In a dash to the line, it was Jakobsen who proved the fastest, sprinting off of Dèmare's wheel in the last 80 metres and taking the stage win.
A crash with 2km to go saw overall race leader Rein Taaramäe (Intermarché - Wanty - Gobert Matériaux) hit the ground but he got back up and finished the stage. There were no changes to the GC and he leads the race by 25 seconds over Kenny Elissonde (Trek-Segafredo) and 30 seconds over Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma).
