Fifty kilometres, one rider
The Collada de Beixalis hit 16 percent and Tadej Pogacar stood up on the pedals. Felix Gall went with him for a few seconds. Nobody saw the Slovenian again.
That move came with roughly 50 kilometres left of a 104.8km stage through Andorra, and it turned the fourth day of the Vuelta a Espana into a solo exhibition. Pogacar crossed the line in Andorra la Vella in 2:40:35. Jarno Widar won the sprint for second, 2:39 down. Gall took third on the same time.
Behind him the chase never organised itself. Gall, Oscar Onley, Richard Carapaz, Mikel Landa, Mattias Skjelmose and Primoz Roglic tried to hold the gap on the Coll d’Ordino, then split apart. Enric Mas and Sepp Kuss climbed across later. At the foot of the Alto de la Comella, the last climb of the day and only five kilometres from home, the lead was 3:12. Adam Yates rode up alongside his team-mate and gave him a fist bump. That was the level of tension left in the race.
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The overall is close to settled
Pogacar started Tuesday nine seconds ahead of Wout van Aert. He ended it 3:21 clear of Roglic, with Mas third at 3:32. Van Aert spent the afternoon in a large early move alongside Matthew Brennan and three other Visma riders, and the whole thing came apart on the descent off the Port d’Envalira.
The mountains classification went the same way. Lorenzo Fortunato grabbed maximum points over the Envalira, 23.3km at 5.1 percent, ahead of polka dot holder Koen Bouwman. Pogacar then swept up everything that mattered on the Beixalis and the Ordino.
Numbers that keep piling up
This was the world champion’s fifth Vuelta stage win and his 37th Grand Tour stage victory. It landed four days after he took the opening time trial in Monaco by nine hundredths of a second.
Monday offered nothing at all. Stage 3 into Font-Romeu was cancelled when a hailstorm swallowed the finale and sent the peloton looking for shelter in a hotel. Seventeen stages remain, and the race drops back towards the Spanish coast on Wednesday.
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