Milan Fretin defies Meeus & Ganna to win uphill sprint on stage 4 of the 2025 Volta ao Algarve
Cycling
Milan Fretin has continued his rich vein of form in the early season and has sprinted to the win on stage 4 of the 2025 Volta ao Algarve in Faro ahead of Jordi Meeus and Filippo Ganna.
Four riders formed the day's breakaway. King of the Mountains leader German Nicolás Tivani was most notable among them, with the Argentine joined by Warre Vangheluwe, Johan Jacobs and Gorka Sorarrain. As Team Visma | Lease a Bike really started to set a fierce pace on the front of the peloton heading into the final two climbs of the day, the lead of the breakaway was decimated, whilst simultaneously thinning things out in the bunch considerably. Just as they summitted the top of the final climb of the day, the break was caught with 17km to go.
Because those final 17kms were predominantly downhill, those distanced from the peloton on the final climbs did manage to get back. The question was though, would the extra bit of tiredness in the legs make it difficult for them against Visma's Wout van Aert in the final sprint? All the GC riders were thankfully through the safety of the 3km to go marker without incident. There was a mechanical for Jonas Vingegaard at 2km to go, but ultimately no stress for the Dane as he was guaranteed the same time as the bunch. In the slightly uphill sprint for the win meanwhile, it was Cofidis' Milan Fretin who stormed to the victory ahead of Jordi Meeus and Filippo Ganna.
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It looks like the winner deviated and nearly clipped WvA. I suspect he should be relegated.
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- Both of them should reach the podium of wins pretty soon, at least ine if them next year if things go well. Tough on Pedersen who could have made it more exciting, impressive endurance from Jasper, interesting bottom half of top 10.Mistermaumau13-04-2025
- A great great race with the expected outcome, more or less. Wow these two are dominant. They’ve won the last 7 monuments, and van der Poel has won two each year for 3 years. They are tied at 8, and Pogacar has two left where he is the favorite. It’s unfair to the rest but that was a slug fest of a race. So fun to watch.RidesHills13-04-2025
- By the way, try to specify details a little deeper next time, I know lengthy text is unpopular but often it’s very useful, like to distinguish between a cobble having the effect of many little hills or a cobbled section :-)Mistermaumau13-04-2025
- Sorry thenMistermaumau13-04-2025
- They made the mistake of asking Kopecky to wait for Lorena and also work for her. Typical Sdworx fail. Kopecly should have been sole leader with Lorena playing foil like Vismaabstractengineer13-04-2025
- these french guys are such petty jealous whiners i can’t stand Madiot.mij13-04-2025
- More crying from a failing team boss with no winsCrashjames13-04-2025
- (I was really replying to the other person...) In Paris Roubaix, the bits with the cobbles are slower than the paved sections, so wind resistance is less than it otherwise would be on a "flat" road, though as I keep pointing out, these are equivalent to a bunch of little hills. While momentum will help one maintain velocity given resistances, you aren't taking into account that one had to get that extra mass up to speed in the first place, which costs more power. So, you do get back most of the extra power you've put in, but that's not helpful. The less rolling resistance (and climbing over the bumps) of less mass will always be more helpful than having more mass, all else held equal. Actually, this could be easily demonstrated with a cyclist on cobbles, 2 runs, start at the same velocity, do the same power, have a backpack full of foam on run 1, then full of rocks on run 2 (ensuring the PSI was perfected for both) and see which run went faster. And when we think about it, we know which one will be faster intuitively.acem8213-04-2025
- Yes, you did say that but what is the point of stating the obvious when obviously a lighter rider won’t be able to avoid reality which is that above a certain speed rolling resistance becomes insignificant compared to wind resistance, so it pragmatically all things being kept equal is irrelevant for them in their task. Momentum is what you’re left with after overcoming resistances, and that’s what going to help you keep up your speed except on a longer hill where weight will slow you faster.Mistermaumau13-04-2025
- Yes ok, but then what were the exact details then, did he cross the line, did his team not ask the stewards committee if they thought it was an exceptional case? He got the time but not the ranking, not even the last ranking, which suggests it was looked at and decided but explain why you feel it wasn’t right? There are only two cases it doesn’t apply, team time trials and summit finishes, so flat or not makes no difference.Mistermaumau13-04-2025