The general classification of the 2025
Tour of the Alps has been completed exploded on stage 4 as
Thymen Arensman secured the first win of his
INEOS Grenadiers career, narrowly taking the race lead from
Michael Storer.
After a six-man group of Lennart Jasch, Felix Engelhardt, Kim Heiduk, Geoffrey Bouchard, Andrea Pietrobon and Emanuel Zangerle went clear in the early breakaway of the day, they'd all been caught by 60km to go. From there, the general classification fight was ignited, firstly through the INEOS Grenadiers leader Thymen Arensman. The Dutchman attacked from way out, and as he entered the final 25km, Arensman was 45 seconds clear of nearest chaser
Derek Gee, with race leader Michael Storer 3:00 down. Notably, Arensman started the day 1:18 down on Storer, whilst Gee was 2:11 behind.
As he began the final climb of the day, Arensman still had 25 seconds on the road from Gee, with Storer 1:48 down. The rest of the GC contenders were seemingly completely out of the running however, more than three and a half minutes back from the front of the race.
Despite having been out front alone for so long, Arensman was showing no signs of wilting on the Kartitscher Sattel. Behind though, Storer in particular was battling hard to keep his GC lead. At the top of the climb, Storer had managed to close the gap to 1:10 to Arensman, importantly just within the 1:18 needed to keep his leader's jersey. With 7km still to go and bonus seconds at the line however, it wasn't quite all over just yet.
This point was proven on the run into the line too as Arensman re-extended that lead over Storer to around the 1:30 mark, as the momentum swung back into the favour of the INEOS man. After Arensman secured the stage win and the bonus seconds, the clocked ticked back to Gee and Storer.