Stage 4 - Larnaca > Pomos The Tour of Cyprus concludes with a hilly stage. Another interesting profile with a quite challening final quarter of the stage: strong puncheurs may take this opportunity for an improvement in the GC and of course a stage win.
GC leader Roglic should not struggle to defend yellow today, but the fight for the other Top-10 positions is still interesting: Van Keirsbulck with a nice gap on Grashev, Riesebeek and Debesay. The latter as the best puncheur amongst those four riders, but can he gain a minute on Van Keirsbulck?
König two minutes behind as 6th and so he needs a big day to somehow attack the podium. Kwiatkowski as one of the favorites for the stage then: he disappointed yesterday and while a Top-10 in the GC seems possible, anything higher than a 9th place (David more than two minutes ahead as 8th) may not be too easy to achieve..
The break of the day is quickly formed:
Tempier (GC 20th + 12.46) Albert (GC 24th + 13.17, 6th KoM 12pts) Nych Omarsson Ebsen Andersson Sakala (4th KoM 19pts)
No chance to attack KoM leader Cieslik (54pts) and also Helme (42pts) as 2nd may be safe with this breakaway group. Still a chance for Sakala, Albert or Tempier (7pts) to at least fight for the 3rd place: Omarsson though takes the first Cat4 climb ahead of Andersson and Ebsen and there's no sign of Sakala, Albert or Tempier particularly fighting for those mountain sprints today..
We're jumping straight into the most challenging sectors, with a steady up and down in the final 54km of the race. The breakaway group goes into pieces with only three riders left in the new leading group:
Omarsson Ebsen Tempier
The peloton is only 2 minutes in arrears though, with Generali setting quite a fast pace already - just 59 riders left in the first peloton, where a major split occured on those first steep climb of the day: Burghardt (GC 17th) and Coronel (GC 26th) as the first notable names being dropped!
And two riders attack from the pack now:
De Leon (GC 35th + 16.00) Kulhavy (GC 34th + 15.58)
43km to go for the leading group, where Tempier/Omarsson dropped Ebsen in the meantime!
Kulhavy just 28 seconds behind, trying to close the gap.. De Leon a few seconds in arrears, joining Ebsen..
41km to go and the peloton is still contrilled by Generali and also Novatek now - the gap to the leading duo is down to just one minute with still a way to go here!
Hughes (GC 73th) as the next riders attacking from the peloton..
And Hughes quickly bridges across Tempier, who dropped Omarsson in the meantime! Also Kulhavy managed to catch up to Tempier, so we have a new leading group, that is now 1'55" ahead of the peloton, that dropped the pace a bit:
Hughes Kulhavy Tempier
The peloton is down to just 50 riders with the next couple of climbs doing some damage and we have the next GC contender struggling to follow:
David (GC 8th) got dropped from the main group! That's rather surprising with him being quite a decent puncheur, but he clearly suffers from the efforts yesterday or simply lacks the daily form!
The leading trio now enters the final climb of the day, 18.5km to the finish: the 'Selladi Tou Appi' features average slopes of 6.3% over 8.3km (including a flat middle sector and steeper sections particularly on the second part) - that's the last chance for any GC contenders to gain time today!
Hughes goes clear from the leading group first!
4.2km to the hilltop (16.4km to the finish) and the first bigger names attack from the peloton (39 riders):
Bridges (GC 7th) as the next rider struggling to hang on with the peloton, where the pace goes up with the latest attacks of Juul-Jensen and Bennett!
Vanspeybrouck (GC 21st) got dropped a few moments before..
De Clercq (GC 9th) surprisingly even prior to Vanspeybrouck and already more than two minutes behind the pack!
12.4km to go and Juul-Jensen reaches the hilltop as the new leader on the stage!
He easily went past Hughes as the last escapee and also Bennett struggled to hang on:
Bennett Hughes Eyob (GC 33rd) form a new chasing group 42 seconds behind Juul-Jensen!
The main group (down to 21 riders now) is further 43 seconds in arrears..
Kwiatkowski (GC 11th + 9.53) with his long awaited attack then and he quickly goes clear from the main group!
Roglic jumps behind him a few moments later and just like Kwiatek, he easily goes away from the bunch..
Another split in this main group, where only 13 riders are left and two or three bigger groups got dropped on the final kilometres of this climb:
Grashev (GC 3rd) Theuns (GC 13th) Tempier (GC 20th) Lehtinen (GC 18th) Riesebeek (4th) in one of these groups, more than a minute behind the main group!
3.5km to go for solo leader Juul-Jensen, who's 1'22" ahead of the first chasers:
Kwiatkowski goes past Bennett/Roglic, who appear to be much stronger than Hughes/Eyob (who are 33 seconds in arrears now)!
The first main group with Penasa/Valls, König, Debesay, Niyonshuti and Panayotov is further 21 seconds behind..
The stage win goes to Juul-Jensen though! A perfectly timed and super strong attack on this final climb, where he easily dropped Bennett and succesfully held off the other chasers with still a notable gap eventually..
+ 35" Kwiatkowski as 2nd, who finally delivered a proper result after yesterday's shocker
+ 1'07" Roglic, who easily defends yellow that way
+ 1'20" Bennett as 4th - a good effort
How far will Kwiatkowski improve in the GC? The next group was 1'21" behind Bennett (and about two minutes behind Kwiatkowski) when they entered the flat sector to the finish:
Debesay and König, as well as Niyonshuti as the main GC contenders in this group and that's quite good news for Debesay!
Van Keirsbulck (GC 2nd + 3.35) is in another group 51 seconds behind group Debesay! This may become a thrilling decision about who's taking the 2nd place in the final GC!
Grashev (GC 3rd + 4.23) another minuted behind group Van Keirsbulck, so he will definitely lose a spot against Debesay..
+ 2'44" for Penasa, Eyob, Hughes
+ 2'54" for the group with König, Debesay and Niyonshuti
Debesay a strong 9th on the stage and given the latest gaps, he definitely could go past Van Keirsbulck in the GC!
+ 3'45" for group Van Keirsbulck and that will be a very close decision between him and Debesay!
+ 5'13" for a group with Theuns, Grashev and Riesebeek
+ 8'20" for a group with Bridges and Vanspeybrouck
+ 11'24" for a group with a disappointing David, De Clercq and Burghardt
Roglic celebrates a well deserved overall victory and writes his name in history books as the first winner of the Tour of Cyprus. With more than six minutes on the runner-up, it's a clear win eventually - but one may wonder, what Kwiatkowski could have done if he had been a proper contender in yesterday's mountain stage.. anyway, Roglic delivered the result, that he came for: a solid cobbles stage and two strong days in the mountains and hills of Cyprus!
Van Keirsbulck finishes as 2nd! Just two seconds ahead of Debesay, who almost moved past him today.. a thrilling fight for the runner-up spot and certainly two deserved podium finishers.
König with a good result today, as he moves up to 4th in the GC! A slightly better performance in the cobbles stage might have brought him a podium, but given the circumstances, he should be happy with his result eventually.
Grashev a kinda unlucky 5th with just five seconds off König, "hybrid" Riesebeek a strong 6th nevertheless!
Kwiatkowski with a nice jump up to 7th thanks to his good effort today. Niyonshuti with a huge result for Eritel then, finishing an impressive 8th in the GC!
Valls and Penasa moving up to 9th and 10th ahead of Marzuki, Bennett, Jeannesson, Bridges and Theuns.. a disastrous day for David, who drops from 8th to 24th and De Clercq (9th to 27th) - while the latter probably won't care too much, it's definitely a huge loss for SPAR, who at least have Marzuki inside the Top-15.
Debesay might have missed the 2nd in the GC by only two seconds, but he moved up to 1st in the points classification thanks to his good result today: 43pts in the end, with Lindeman (38) and Roglic (30) on the further positions..
Cieslik (54pts) with the KoM honours ahead of Helme (42) and Tempier (25), who rode a strong race for Festina today..
Lehtinen celebrates the U25 victory ahead of Eyob (+ 1.12) and De Leon (+ 3.50)!
Generali - EDF wins the teams classification with a good gap on Kulczyk and a huge gap on Carlsberg..
And that's it from the inaugaral edition of the Tour of Cyprus! Definitely an interesting race with several changes in the GC (for obvious reasons). A climber delivered the GC win, but with two cobblers on the podium, there's quite an interesting mix of different riders at the top of the GC. While some managers may regret a decision, some others should definitely be happy with their performance here.
