Third-placed Ciccone holds on to race lead on Alto de la Cueva Santa
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Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) wins stage 4, the queen stage at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Geoghegan Hart led home a select group to take the victory(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Geoghegan Hart celebrates with teammate Carlos Rodríguez after his win(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Ineos Grenadiers' Thymen Arensman and Bardiani's Samuele Zoccarato on the attack earlier in the day(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
The peloton winding through the Spanish hills(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
The peloton speeding along on stage 4(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
The peloton climbing to the Alto de la Cueva Santa Altura during 181.6km stage 4 (Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
The peloton on the big climbing day from Burriana to Alto de la Cueva Santa Altura(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Omar Fraile of Ineos Grenadiers takes a turn at the front on the final ascent(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers) leads the peloton(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Laurens De Plus (Ineos Grenadiers) launches an attack with eventual stage winner Tao Geoghegan Hart on his wheel(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Samuele Zoccarato of Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizane in the polka-dot Mountain Jersey(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Thomas Gloag of (Jumbo-Visma) celebrates with the white Best Young Rider Jersey (Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) retains the yellow Leader's Jersey (Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
The celebration by Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) as stage 4 winner (Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) won stage 4 in Spain(Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Three years after his last win at the 2020 Giro d'Italia, Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) has taken the queen stage of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana in a small group sprint.
Second on the summit finish at the Alto de la Cueva Santa was Thomas Gloag (Jumbo-Visma), with race leader Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) coming home in third.
After Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers), the last survivor of a dangerous 23-rider stage-long break was reeled in with less than 10km to go, the race came down to the final climb. Ineos Grenadiers laid down a searing pace and Geoghegan Hart was led out by teammate Carlos Rodríguez to snatch his first win of the season.
Ciccone, who won stage 2 of the race, now has just one stage – a short hilly run from Paterna to Valencia on Sunday – left to defend his slim four-second lead ahead of Geoghegan Hart.
"I felt really good the other day," Geoghegan Hart said afterwards, referring to the stage 2 summit finish where he was also battling for the stage win. "But we wanted to see how it went.
"I just really wanted to have a memorable race here today and not leave any stone unturned. It was a super-nice stage at the end with the guys on the front, Thymen rode and rode and Carlos did an amazing job.
"I'd have liked to have gone from a bit longer to try and make a gap and I probably shouldn't have celebrated, but anyway… I'm happy to win and that's what matters."
How it unfolded
The toughest day of Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana with more than 3,500 metres of vertical climbing started with a bang, as 23 riders took off on the first climb of the day, the third category Puerto de Ain.
Almost all the major teams had representation, but critically for overall race leader Ciccone Trek-Segafredo placed two riders in the move, Bauke Mollema, just 30 seconds down overall and Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier.
That instantly removed any pressure to chase for the leader's squad, but there were plenty of teams in the same situation. Ineos Grenadiers had Omar Fraile and new signing Thymen Arensman up front, Bahrain Victorious had placed former Volta Valenciana winner Wout Poels, Intermarché-Circus-Wanty's Georg Zimmerman, Jayco-AIUIa's Alessandro de Marchi and Jorge Arcas of Movistar.
Domen Novak (UAE Team Emirates), Tosh Van de Sande (Jumbo-Visma), Nico Denz (Bora-Hansgrohe), and Astana pair David de la Cruz and Cristian Scaroni also had riders in the mix. Movistar and Bora-Hansgrohe, though, despite having a rider ahead, led the chase behind with Bahrain Victorious then providing assistance later on.
After the gap for the 23 had stretched open to over three minutes at one point, at the foot of the first ascent of the final climb of Montmayor, the work behind had cut back on the lead to just over two. But the ultra-fast pace, averaging nearly 40kph on an exceptionally hilly day, was doing some real damage both ahead and behind.
All the way up the incessantly draggy slopes of the Montmayor with Fraile working hard on the front, the gap hovered at around two minutes, leaving just 15 riders still in the front group. Behind Gino Mäder and Fred Wright continued to drive hard for Bahrain Victorious.
Their work was beginning to bear fruit and the gap began to sink on the rolling terrain that followed, to the point where with 51km to go, Arensman opted for a lone move. 56 seconds down on Ciccone overall, the new Ineos Grenadiers racer ploughed on towards the line, quickly opening up a gap of over a minute on the increasingly fragmented group of pursuers from the break and double that on the peloton.
However, as more and more riders from the break rejoined the peloton, the pace behind grew quickly and with 20 kilometres to go, although the time gaps on TV were unreliable at best, Arensman's chances first of the GC and of the stage appeared to be flagging.
Arensman bravely endured ahead with just a few hundred metres of daylight of advantage even as the peloton approached the sunlit final ascent. But first Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) used a short ramp to break free of the bunch and bridge across and then a peloton led by Bora-Hansgrohe swallowed up the two riders in front.
The race roared onto the final steady but not excessively difficult climb with nearly 100 riders in the front group and Bora-Hansgrohe, UAE Team Emirates and Bahrain Victorious all setting the pace.
However, Ineos Grenadiers then powered it up even faster, placing four riders at the front of the group as first Jonathan Castroviejo and Rodríguez blasted away. Geoghegan Hart then delivered a faultless sprint to claim his first victory in three years, and with only four seconds between himself and Ciccone, his options of taking the overall on Sunday are far from low.
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
