Vuelta a Burgos: Oier Lazkano overtakes Santiago Buitrago to win stage 4
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Oier Lazkano (Movistar) won stage 4 of the Vuelta a Burgos after defeating Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) in the uphill final at Pradoluengo. The Spanish champion was part of a nine-man move that broke away early in the stage and took victory on the Class 3 climb to the line.
Primoz Roglic finished safely in the main peloton to maintain his commanding overall lead ahead of Saturday’s final at Lagunas de Neila and his Jumbo-Visma team policed the day’s break to ensure the dangerous Jay Vine (UAE Emirates) – 9th on stage – would be Not given too much leeway.
Lazkano showed his strength by holding off a late attack from Joan Bou (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and then rising to the front. Buitrago was the only rider able to keep up with Lazkano’s acceleration, but he couldn’t muster the speed to get around the strongman in the closing metres. Raul Garcia Pierna (Kern Pharma) took third place, three seconds behind Lazkano.
The Basque team-mate Ivan Garcia Cortina won the sprint for 10th place, 58 seconds later, and Lazkano explained afterwards that the Movistar team had prepared for any eventuality on Friday’s stage.
“Today we were told by the team to try to get into the break, but we also had Garcia in the company in case he ended up sprinting,” Lazcano said.
The 23-year-old has enjoyed a breakout season, with second place at Dwars door Vlaanderen, victory at Boucles de la Mayenne and, of course, the Spanish road title. Despite the presence of climbers of the caliber of Buitrago and Vine in the break of the day, Lazkano was forced to bide his time for the 2km pull-up on the line due to headwinds in the high resistance towards the final category 3 climb.
“The last 40 or 50km, we had a headwind so we had to wait for the climb to attack, but we always had two or three minutes on the bunch,” said Lazkano, who is in line to start the second Vuelta a. Spain next week. “It’s nice to win in Spain in the jersey of the national champion and so close to home.”
Lazkano joined Vine, Ostrich, Matteo Fabbro (Bora-Hansgrohe), Jonathan Klever Caicedo (EF Education-EasyPost), Harold Martin Lopez (Astana-Kazakhstan), Raul Garcia Pierna (Kern Pharma), Joan Bou (Euskaltel-Euskalu) and Gian Bou (Euskaltel-Euskalu) Brambilla (Q36.5) in the day’s early break, formed with 150km to go.
Vine, who impressed on stage 3 until a crash halted his progress, started the day 4:46 clear of Roglic’s overall lead, which meant Jumbo-Visma was reluctant to give the escapees too much room if and as the afternoon wore on, it was becoming clear that they would have a chance to claim the stage win.
Brambilla was first in the break to attack, unleashing a blistering acceleration with 1.3km to go, held by Buitrago. Garcia Pierna, already on the attack on Thursday, kicked under the flamme rouge before Bou launched his 500m bid to finish.
Lazcano sensed his moment and responded, bringing Buitrago with him. The Colombian may have been slightly favored in a final like this, but Lazkano’s power won the day.
Behind, Attila Valter brought the peloton to within a minute of the break on the final climb, while Roglic avoided a crash on the finale to finish safely in the peloton and maintain his overall lead. He has a 33-second buffer over Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) and 38 over Adam Yates (UAE) ahead of Saturday’s final at Lagunas de Neila.
“It was hot, real summer and also windy today. But you have a strong team and the guys did a really good job, so everything was under control,” said Roglic.
“Tomorrow will be the difficult one with the uphill finish. Of course, it’s very nice, with a lot of people on the road, a lot of support. I’m definitely looking forward to tomorrow.”
Results
The results are supported by FirstCycling
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