Jonas Vingegaard again edged Mikel Landa to take a second straight stage in the Tour of the Basque Country yesterday and tighten his grip on first place.
Vingegaard, the Tour de France champion, had won the previous day to take the overall lead with Basque rider Landa finishing second to jump to second overall.
On Thursday’s stage four, a hilly 175.7km circuit starting and ending in Santurzi, in the dockside suburbs of Bilbao, Vingegaard attacked uphill 20km from the finish. Landa quickly gave chase and caught the Dane. “I knew I had to get on Vingegaard’s wheel,” said the Spaniard who rides for Bahrain-McLaren. “Then it was basically all I could do to hold onto him.”
With the pack slow to react as riders waited for members of other teams to expend the energy the leaders built a gap of 30 seconds by the peak.
The pursuers were unable to make up much time on the narrow, snaking descent toward the finish. The leading pair had just enough of a cushion to play cat and mouse over the final kilometre.
As the pack surged closer, Vingegaard, who rides for Jumbo Visma, led into the final corner and was able to control the line as he surged to the finish. “I tried to stay coldblooded, but I just did not have quite enough at the end,” said the 33-year-old Landa.
Mauro Schmid, a Swiss rider with Soudal-Quick Step, led the charging pack home two seconds later.
“We saw them always at 20 seconds in front,” he said of the desperate chase over the closing kilometres.
“In the end was really close. It was a big opportunity to win the stage today. A bit disappointed that it was so close.”
But, he said, the two race leaders had an edge uphill.
“On the climbs they were definitely stronger,” Schmid said. Vingegaard picked up a three-second bonus during the stage and gained another four seconds on Landa with the winner’s bonus, to increase his lead over the Spaniard to 12 seconds.
French rider David Gaudu of Groupama remained third but trails Vingegaard by 31 seconds with two stages to go.