A well-timed late surge netted up-and-coming Danish rider Tobias Lund Andresen (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) the victory on stage 4's uphill finish of the 2024 CRO Race, while Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) remained firmly in control overall with just two days of racing left to go.
After Bahrain Victorious duo Fred Wright and Edoardo Zambanini raised the pace on the second, definitive assault on the cobbled cat 3 Labin climb, Lund Andresen zipped past in the last few metres of the ascent for the stage win.
McNulty placed seventh behind the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL rider, a handful of seconds adrift as the front group of some 40 riders shattered.
After the CRO Tour's hardest stage of the 2024 edition, crossing the mighty Hors Categorie Poklon ascent, McNulty still leads 22 seconds ahead of Lund Andresen, with Zambanini in third.
"I really didn't expect this, the team put a lot of faith in me - I didn't win today, it was my team," Lund Andresen, clad in the white jersey of Best Young Rider, told the race organiser's TV interviewer afterwards.
"They paced me back up over the hardest climb of the day, I would never have been up there at the finish if it wasn't for them."
"But I think physically this is the best moment of my life. And I knew the final climb from last year and hoped somebody would blow up ahead of me. When you are a sprinter like me, you don't feel the legs anymore, you just go for it."
Four riders took off in the first flat section of the 160.5 kilometre stage in a strong-looking move with Robert Stannard (Bahrain Victorious), Ryan Mullen (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Hugo Aznar (Kern Pharma), 2023 Giro d'Italia race leader Andreas Leknessund (Uno X Mobility) and Tim Marsman (Metec-SOLARWATT p/b Mantel). The five had a slowly shrinking gap of just over two minutes at the foot of the Polkon climb - the one Hors Categorie ascent of the 2024 race - courtesy of the pressure applied behind by Polti-Kometa and UAE. That was when Leknessund opted to press on, shedding Marsman and Mullen from the break, while the peloton split into several large segments as a result of UAE's hard work on the 11.7-kilometre climb.
However, what UAE were likely not counting on was when multiple Kern Pharma riders attacked in quick succession, leaving McNulty isolated and forced to chase in person close to the mist-enshrouded, rainsoaked summit. Such was the intensity of the aggressive racing that by the top just seven riders remained with McNulty, only for Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) to go missing from their number when he crashed heavily on a sharp righthander on the downhill.
After a technical, fast descent into much drier conditions, race-wise there was bad news for breakaway trio Leknessund, Aznar and Stannard as McNulty, previously unsupported in the chase group, was reached by UAE teammate Igor Arrieta. As the race reached its third hour, Arrieta did nearly all the heavy lifting on the smoother, gentler lower downhill sections, and then after the mini-peloton swelled considerably in numbers, Stannard and Leknessund were finally reeled in 23 kilometres from the line.
Late testing attacks began almost immediately on the short, constantly twisting finishing circuit, tackled twice, that followed. DSM and Kern Pharma were notably present in numbers on the front as the cobbled cat 3 Labin, the only summit finish of the 2024 race, approached. But in fact, it was Austrian National Champion Alexander Hajek (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) who started the late fireworks.
McNulty was in fourth place near the front of the main group when the pack went across the summit of the Labin for the first time, keeping a close eye on the GC contenders. The American responded quickly as the tireless Castrillo then bounded past the stage leaders. However, he was less interested when Ben Turner (Ineos Grenadiers) accelerated away at 9.5 kilometres go, inching out his lead in a fiercely determined move.
Turner's courageous late attack was sucked in almost at the foot of the climb, leaving Ineos and DSM to boss the front. Clearly wanting to discourage late challenges, McNulty opened up the throttle in the last 200 metres, only for Bahrain to try a double move with Wright and Zambanini. However, they, too, were powerless to stop Lund Andresen from darting past their right-hand side to claim the sixth win in just two years as a professional.
Lund Andresen was asked if he thought he could still overtake McNulty on GC in the two days of racing remaining, but he was not overly optimistic.
"I think it's difficult to beat McNulty after what he did yesterday [stage 3], his win was really impressive, huge respect for him," he said.
"So I think the win is out of the picture but at least the final podium is possible. I don't think I've ever done that before."
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