Primoz Roglic rules again at La Vuelta after brutal finale atop Pico Villuercas on stage 4

The first summit finish and there were real general classification differences atop Pico Villuercas on stage 4 of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana. In the end though it was Primoz Roglic who took the victory.

Arriving into Spain with a bang, stage 4 of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana saw the race head towards the high mountains with a first summit finish with the potential separate the contenders for the Red Jersey. Hoping the breakaway might get some leeway, five riders got themselves up the road early, those being Filippo Zana, Mikel Bizkarra, Pablo Castrillo, Sylvain Moniquet and Bruno Armirail. Best placed GC wise btw, was Armirail, who started the day 31 seconds of the Red Jersey.

With Primoz Roglic sending his Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe teammates to control the front of the peloton, the breakaway were never really given much of an advantage however. At just under 40km to go, the breakaway started to disintegrate already, with Armirail attacking and drawing Castrillo clear with him.

After the intermediate sprint with around 15km to go, where Kaden Groves narrowly defeated Wout van Aert in the fight for Green Jersey points, the climbing towards the finish line began, with Armirail and Castrillo's advantage was down to just 1:13 over the bunch.

Whilst the early slopes of the finale climb were nothing to really write home about, once the road diverted onto a concrete track, the slopes went up as high as over 20%, with a 3km brutal section between 6km and 3km to the top averaging at 13%. Taking over from Red Bull - BORA, UAE Team Emirates began to make their presence known with around 6km to go. With 4.8k to go, Pavel Sivakov started to ride off the front of the bunch, catching Armirail and Castrillo in the process.

With the domestiques mostly burned out, Roglic and Enric Mas were leading the chase to Sivakov's back wheel and with just over 4km to go, Roglic himself started to set the pace at the front. The next real attack though, came from Felix Gall and with Roglic unwilling to lead the chase initially, the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team man quickly managed to build up a lead over the rest of the GC hopefuls.

As the gaps behind Gall started to grow, Roglic, Mas and Lennert van Eetvelt were proving the strongest of the chasers and with 2.8km to go, the quartet regrouped at the head of the race. Paying for his efforts though, Gall was soon in trouble and dropped by the trio of Roglic, Mas and Van Eetvelt.

As the road flattened out slightly with 2km to go, Joao Almeida dragged across Gall and Matthew Riccitello to the leaders, making a six man group at the front. With them all looking at each other however, the pace began to slow and Mikel Landa was brought back into contention as well. With the seven set to fight it out for the stage win, Landa came straight over the top but in the end it was Primoz Roglic who edged out Lennert van Eetvelt in a thrilling finale.

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