Pablo Torres, 18-year old climbing sensation has won stage 4 of the Tour de l'Avenir and took over the race lead with an impressive performance. Joseph Blackmore, former yellow jersey, couldn't keep up and lost time to several riders.
The fourth day of racing in France was an incredibly hard day in the mountains. Although we did not see serious GC attacks, the first 45 kilometers of the stage were almost fully uphill with the ascent of the Col de l'Iseran, summiting at over 2700 meters of altitude.
12 riders formed the breakaway of the day: Jaume Guardeño, Alasatair Mackellar, Simone Gualdi, Moritz Kretschy, Menno Huising, Max van der Meulsen, Matthew Greenwood, Arno Wallenborn, Louis Sutton, Clement Izquierdo, Joris Chaussinand and Tobias Svarre finally.
Over the l'Iseran no-one made a serious move and so this was not ultimately a big threat for the GC, whilst behind everyone also saved their legs for the climb to Les Karelis. Here, in the front of the race, Svarre went solo off the front with 11 kilometers to go. A strong climber, it looked like he could go for the stage win.
But behind the attacks also started early on. Jarno Widar attacked with 8 kilometers to go making an initial split in the group. With just over 5 to go Pablo Torres launched a powerful attack... Widar then began a solo chose whilst race leader Joseph Blackmore was dropped and began losing time.
With 2.5 kilometers to go Torres reached Svarre and dropped him, the 18-year old Spanish rider put on a brilliant rider to turn the race on it's head, taking the stage win and race lead. Darren van Bekkum rode to second place whilst Jarno Widar crossed the line in third.
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