João Almeida destroys Itzulia Basque Country peloton on 20% climb and takes over race lead with solo win

João Almeida is a rider who often finishes second or incredibly close to the wins, but today was his day. On stage 4 of the Itzulia Basque Country the UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider left no room for doubt, he showed he was the strongest climber in the race and took a strong solo win and race lead.

It was another very fast start to the stage with many quality riders and GC outsiders trying to form a breakaway. The hilly terrain contributed to the difficult pace in the peloton, but eventually a large group formed itself in the head of the race.

Quinn Simons, Finn Fisher-Black, Mauro Schmid, Marc Soler, Andrea Bagioli, Léo Bisiaux, Ben Healy, Alex Baudin and Sepp Kuss formed the head of the race, a very strong group but no one that cooperated too well which meant that the gap never grew above two minutes, with Soudal - Quick-Step and Bahrain-Victorious cooperating to close down the gap.

The catch was effectively made at the bottom of the final climb to Izua, with it's first half averaging around 15%. In these incredibly hard gradients Santiago Buitrago took the risk and moved off the front early on, later exploding. It was a climb so steep that everyone could only ride their own pace, and eventually João Almeida hit the front and his pace was so high that no-one could follow in the wheel.

Florian Lipowitz, Clément Champoussin and Alex Aranburu were the chasing trio, but were caught towards the end of the climb by a group of a little less than 10 riders, whilst Max Schachmann chased on not far behind. The gap at the top was around 30 seconds, and he would keep most of it all the way to the line. Almeida won the stage with a gap of 28 seconds over the rest, with the GC group being led by Isaac del Toro and Max Schachmann.