Buitrago left overnight leader João Almeida in the dust after UAE Team Emirates spent most of the day controlling the breakaway and snatched the race leader's jersey from the Portuguese rider.
"I can't describe how happy I am. Today, I was mainly focused on gaining bonus seconds to take the leader's jersey, and to be honest, the win was quite unexpected," Buitrago said.
"We thought it would be a day for the sprinters, like our former teammate Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), but in the finale, I was at the front with Pello (Bilbao), and we decided it was worth trying. I accelerated, went all in, and made it happen. It's incredible—we thought it would be difficult to take back seconds in the GC, and instead, we took both the stage win and the leader's jersey."
Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), led out for the stage by teammate Jakob Söderqvist, finished a distant second place at 12 seconds while the Swede finished third in the uphill dash to the line after turning himself inside out to hold onto the lead group in the final kilometres.
"It was super tough - we managed it really well," Milan said. "I was dropped a few times and the team always brought me back. I was always on the limit. In the end, we were in a good position. Jakob had really good legs today and had a little gap in the last 500m. I was thinking he could [win] because he was feeling better than me. Then I saw Buitrago coming from behind super fast. I tried to ride my own pace for the 400 metres still to ride to the finish."
Buitrago now leads Almeida by eight seconds in the overall classification with teammate Pello Bilbao in third at 29 seconds.
How it Unfolded
Four climbs were on tap during the 181-kilometre stage 4 of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, with riders set to climb the Alto de la Bandereta, Col del la basa, Alto de Chodos and Alto de Vistabella before the finish in Portell de Morella.
Five riders dropped out of the race before the stage: Lars Boven (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Michael Leonard (Ineos Grenadiers), Iñigo Elosegui (Kern Pharma) and Xabier Isasa and Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel-Euskadi). Not far into the stage, another Euskaltel rider abandoned, Márton Dina.
Attacks flew from kilometre zero, with Hugo Houle (Israel-Premier Tech) and Diego Uriarte (Kern Pharma) emerging from a group of a dozen to form the first escape. They were joined by Jon Agirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and were quickly given a maximum lead of eight minutes.
Agirre led over the first climb, while Uriarte led over the Coll de la Basa and through the sprint in Atzeneta del Maestrat after 75.2km.
UAE Team Emirates, Lidl-Trek and Movistar cooperated to bring the breakaway's lead down to two minutes before the Alto de Chodos, and sensing the danger, Agirre attacked solo with 93km to go.
He led over the Alto de Chodos to tie for the lead of the mountains classification with Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious). Agirre was still solo on the Alto de Vistabella, where there was a time bonus sprint at the summit.
However, the action began to pick up in the peloton on the climb, with Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and Davide Piganzoli (Polti-Visit Malta) making a move before being quickly reeled in. Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) had better luck and bridged across to Agirre.
The pair had just under two minutes with 50km to go, but as the gap began to fall slowly, Castrillo left Agirre behind with 39km to go and buried himself to hold onto the lead. He held 30 seconds still with 17km to race as UAE Team Emirates led the chase.
Castrillo missed a turn and had to bunny-hop a traffic island but still powered on until 9.5km to go when the chasing bunch had him in sight.
Ineos Grenadiers then set a brisk pace before Movistar's Jefferson Cepeda made a move and managed to open up a strong lead that was still at 15 seconds with 3km to go.
Inside the final kilometre, Jakob Söderqvist (Lidl-Trek) swept past Cepeda with Buitrago on his wheel, and then couldn't hold the pace of the Spaniard.
Laura Weislo has been with Cyclingnews since 2006 after making a switch from a career in science. As Managing Editor, she coordinates coverage for North American events and global news. As former elite-level road racer who dabbled in cyclo-cross and track, Laura has a passion for all three disciplines. When not working she likes to go camping and explore lesser traveled roads, paths and gravel tracks. Laura specialises in covering doping, anti-doping, UCI governance and performing data analysis.
