Sergio Chumil (Burgos) outsprinted race leader Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) by a few centimeters on the uphill finish to win the Queen Stage, stage 4 of O Gran Camiño, on Saturday.
Gee led Chumil as they raced to victory, but Chumil was able to take the biggest victory of his career with a bike throw as they crossed the line at the same time.
Leading a chase group across the line 18 seconds later, Davide Piganzoli (Polti VisitMalta) outsprinted Jefferson Cepeda (Movistar) to secure third place.
An isolated Gee, attacked on the lower slopes of Alto da Pitinidoir inside of 16 kilometres to go, trying to distance his closest rivals. The Canadian’s pace splintered the group on the steeper pitches and dispatched his closest rival, Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility), on the steeper pitches.
The Canadian continued to put the pressure on the climb and finally escaped with only Chumil able to follow his wheel one kilometre later. The two pulled away as Piganzoli and Cepeda gave chase together.
“That was a super hard stage. My team was amazing, they kept the pace super hard on all the climbs and then unfortunately, I couldn't go solo over the top of the last climb. I had the Burgos guy on the wheel, and I knew at that point I just had to ride it in and try and get a GC gap. So I tried to sprint, but he got me in the end," Gee said.
"As soon as I came over the top of the last climb, I had a gap on the other GC guys, I just had to ride it until the finish. So unfortunately, couldn't go fully for the stage because our biggest priority is the GC."
Gee went into the stage with a goal of increasing his slim lead of five seconds in the general classification. A goal that he accomplished, as he now tops Piganzoli by 37 seconds. Cort dropped down one spot to third overall at 49 seconds in arrears.
The 114-rider peloton faced a 136.4k stage from A Pobra do Brollón to O Cebreiro featuring the two final climbs, Alto da Pitinidoira (cat. 1) cresting with 14.35km remaining and the Alto do Cebreiro (cat. 3) with 1.6km from the line.
The peloton stayed together as they made their way to the first intermediate sprint, with Cort crossing the line first, reducing his deficit to a slim two seconds to Gee in the general classification.
Not long after, Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) escaped off the front and was joined by Unai Esparza. The pair built up a maximum lead of 2:10 with 77 kilometres to go. With the gap reduced to 30 seconds, more riders joined the duo, making it 10 riders up the road, but the Israel-Premier Tech kept a tight leash on the escapees and reeled them in soon after.
Under the impetus of Johannes Kulset (UXM), another group, including Mauri Vansevenant (SOQ), Josh Burnett (BBH), Alessandro Tonelli (PTV), and Samuel Fernández Garcia (CJR,) formed the second break of the day with 31 kilometres to go.
The quintet was reabsorbed by the shattered peloton on the approach to the Alto da Pitinidoira, with Gee making his decisive move on the difficult climb. Gee quickly established a gap of 30 seconds by the time he crested the cat.1 ascent with Chumil on his wheel.
Gee did most of the work as the pair raced to the finish line, as Chumil refused to work. The duo had 30 seconds to the chase group and almost one minute to a second chase group, which included Cort with eight kilometres to go.
Gee was still setting the pace in the final hundred metres, leading the sprint, but Chumil was able to get around him to the finish line, crossing the line at the same time.
O Gran Camiño concludes on Sunday with the 159.9km stage 6, which has a tough category 3 climb with 20.8km to go, followed by three gravel sections along the Camino de Santiago before the grand finale in Santiago de Compostela.
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