Richeze ends Sagan’s domination at Tour de Suisse
Maximiliano Richeze (Etixx – Quick-Step) won stage 4 of the Tour de Suisse in Champagne ahead of his teammate Fernando Gaviria, while Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) placed third to remain in the overall lead.
Petr Vakoc (Etixx – Quick-Step) led the peloton under the flamme rouge and then Sagan’s lead-out man Oscar Gatto sprinted ahead. However, the Slovakian did a mistake by staying on Gaviria’s wheel and when he launched his effort, Richeze led Gaviria and Sagan past the fading Italian.
The trio were first through the final turn while Danny Van Poppel (Sky) tried to pass while riding in fourth. The Dutchman had bad luck to almost crash and so a gap opened behind Sagan.
Gaviria quickly realized that he could hand the victory to his teammate so he sat up. Sagan reacted too late and could not even come around the Colombian who made it a 1-2 for Etixx-QuickStep.
A 2-second gap opened up behind Sagan, with Tom Van Asbroeck (LottoNL-Jumbo) winning the sprint for fourth. However, Sagan could console himself with the fact that he extended his overall lead over Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) to 9 seconds.
There will be no chance that he will defend the jersey in stage 5 which is the first of three consecutive summit finishes. Having tackled the might Furkapass and Gotthardpass, the riders will descend to the bottom of the very hard final climb to Cari which averages 7.5% over 10.1km and is set to reveal who will be in contention for victory at the 2016 Tour de Suisse.
Tour de Suisse 2016 – stage 4 results (Rheinfelden – Champagne):
| 1 | Maximiliano Richeze (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
5:08:21 |
| 2 | Fernando Gaviria (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
,, |
| 3 | Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) |
+02” |
| 4 | Tom Van Asbroeck (LottoNl-Jumbo) |
,, |
| 5 | Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) |
,, |
| 6 | Magnus Cort Nielsen (Orica-GreenEDGE) |
,, |
| 7 | Raymond Kreder (Roompot – Oranje Peloton) |
,, |
| 8 | Andrea Pasqualon (Roth) |
,, |
| 9 | Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) |
,, |
| 10 | Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin) |
,, |
General classification after stage 4:
| 1 | Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) |
14:22:30 |
| 2 | Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) |
+09” |
| 3 | Silvan Dillier (BMC) |
,, |
| 4 | Maximiliano Richeze (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
+17” |
| 5 | Jon Izaguirre (Movistar) |
+19” |
| 6 | Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) |
+20” |
| 7 | Gorka Izaguirre (Movistar) |
+23” |
| 8 | Wilco Kelderman (LottoNl-Jumbo) |
,, |
| 9 | Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE) |
+24” |
| 10 | Geraint Thomas (Sky) |
+25” |
