A year later, the Australian Kaden Groves did it again by winning the sprint of the 4th stage of the Tour of Spain cycling on Tuesday in Tarragona, the second success of his career on the event, ahead of the Colombian Juan Sebastian Molano. Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was the strongest in a very nervous final package, overtaking Molano after a long sprint launched a little too early by the Colombian. The 24-year-old sprinter won his third victory there on a grand tour. Winner last year of the 11th stage of the Vuelta, he also raised his arms this year on the Giro (5th stage).
Belgian Remco Evenepoel, who won the Vuelta last year, retained the leader’s red jersey after a rather quiet day for the peloton despite two crashes in the final, in which French sprinter Bryan Coquard crashed. was caught, injuring himself a priori in a shoulder blade, just like the leader of Bahrain-Victorious Santiago Buitrago, 8th overall at the start of the stage. Dutchman Wilco Kelderman, who was 9th overall and lieutenant of the Jumbo, also lost time, crossing the finish line 3 min 39 sec after Groves.
Argentinian Eduardo Sepulveda (Lotto-Dstiny), who had already escaped the day before before being swallowed up by the group of favorites, took advantage of the day to collect six additional points in the mountain classification and take first place. If he was already wearing the white jersey with blue polka dots on Tuesday, Evenepoel keeping the overall leader’s red tunic, Sepulveda becomes after this fourth stage the first Argentine to take the lead in a classification during a grand tour.
After three turbulent first days (bad weather, crash of Evenepoel after the finish on Monday), the race took place without major incident on the road. The Spanish national police announced on Tuesday that four Catalan separatists had been arrested on Saturday: they planned to pour motor oil on the route of the third stage which ran two days after their arrest.
Wednesday, the 5th stage (186.2 km) will take the peloton from Morella to Burriana, north of Valencia and could smile on the adventurers, with a second category climb whose summit will be located about fifty kilometers from the finish.
