The Colombian won the fourth stage of the Vuelta, beating Peter Sagan in the final sprint.

The fourth stage of Vuelta a San Juan was known to be one of the toughest since the trip to Calingasta is constantly uphill so many of the mountain specialists were expected to appear in this section. The curious thing was that, barely ten kilometers after reaching the Alto del Villicum, around thirty cyclists lost their wheel and -from that moment- they had to start a new effort to catch up with the peloton.

Unlike previous stages, in the breakaway that started at 15 km, this time there were three World cyclists who caught fire: Ryan Mullen (BOH BORA – HANSGROHE, Lund Andersen (DSM TEAM DSM) and Harold López (AST ASTANA QAZAQSTAN TEAM), who together with twelve other competitors, marked up to 7m30s to the majority group. Later one of the great world figures would join, Egan Bernal (IGD INEOS – GRENADIERS) while the peloton began to close the gap.

During the stage, the peloton was divided in two with world cyclists who decided to go looking for the leaders and another group who preferred to speculate, not wear themselves out and, in the end, paid dearly for riding at that pace, reaching more than eleven minutes from the winner, Fernando Gaviria.

The fourth stage was for a Latin American with one of the greatest exponents of him and who always inscribes his name at some stage of the Tour of San Juan: Fernando Gaviria. The Colombian cyclist from Team Movistar reached the final meters of the fourth stage with an important group of cyclists, but took the part without any problems, clearly winning the final sprint over Peter Sagan, from Total Energies, with Filippo Ganna finishing third, of Ineos Grenadiers.

First, second and third of the stage went on to occupy the same positions in the general classification with Gaviria and a difference of ten seconds over the Slovakian Sagan and fourteen seconds over the Italian Ganna.

On Thursday, January 26,  the riders will have a day-off and the activity on the San Juan routes will continue on Friday with the dispute of the fifth stage starting at 3:10 p.m. from Mendoza and Centenario streets, in Chimbas and arrival in Alto Colorado, traveling 173.7 km.

Photos: Fernando Gaviria y un vuelo con final feliz en la altura de Barreal