As it happened – Vuelta a España stage 4

Meanwhile, Will Jones has this tech gallery from the Vuelta. 

A full report, results and pictures from today’s stage are available here.

Lennert Van Eetvelt missed out on stage victory but this performance will give the UAE Tour winner plenty of belief for the remainder of the Vuelta. “Now it hurts a bit, but in a couple of days, I can be pretty happy with it,” Van Eetvelt said. “Today was a good confirmation of the form and it gives me and the team confidence.” 

Sepp Kuss was 11th at 28 seconds and in the overall standings he is now 13th at 1:14. “It was super tough. The heat made it hard, and it was a big group on the entry to that climb, so it was quite nervous. In the end, it was a pretty short effort even if it felt like a while. I didn’t have the best feeling but then I saw I only lost 30 seconds so I can be happy with that actually. It was pretty calm all day. I think everybody was saving a bit because if you go over the limit in this heat you feel it. And we all felt it in the finale.”

Kuss’ old teammate Primoz Roglic, meanwhile, showed his hand this afternoon.

“Everybody knew he was going to be the favourite and he was going to be really strong like he always is, especially in the Vuelta,” Kuss said. “This was a confirmation: he rode the bottom of the climb to the top. He looked pretty strong to me.”

Erstwhile overall leader Wout van Aert rolls across the line 26 minutes down. The Belgian will go again for stage victory tomorrow.

Enric Mas, meanwhile, has just produced his best ride of the season on the first summit finish of the Vuelta, and that augurs well for his chances of adding to his collection of overall podium finishes in this race. And Mikel Landa also declared himself present with a dramatic fightback in the final 2km.

João Almeida will be heartened by his display, which was very much in keeping with pretty much every big climb Almeida has tackled in his career. He was canny enough not to go into the red on the steepest section but he cruised across the gap to Roglic et al when the road flattened out. The Portuguese rider might well be UAE’s leader now -…