After taking his first professional win and moving into the overall lead of the Tour of the Alps on stage 3, Juan Pedro Lopez was tasked with holding onto that lead on a brutally mountainous stage 4. A task in which he succeeded.
Despite numerous attacks from the likes of Wout Poels, Antonio Tiberi, Ben O'Connor and Valentin Paret-Peintre among others, Lopez looked in supreme control, marking moves and in the end only losing out on a handful of seconds to O'Connor and Michael Storer. “It was a tough day for me, but the team was great. Really great,” he reflected afterwards to Wielerflits.
"Those attacks did indeed happen. But in the end I got here and I still have the green jersey. Did I surprise myself? A bit, because I had to close a lot of gaps," he adds. "The men of Bahrain Victorious attacked very hard, just like those of Decathlon AG2R. But I tried to defend my green jersey."
With just one stage to go, overall victory is within touching distance. Now just 38 seconds clear of O'Connor and 48 from Tiberi however, Lopez can't afford any slip up. “It's going to be bananas,” the Lidl-Trek leader admits. “But together with the team I will try to defend my place again. We'll see what happens.”
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