A single powerful mountain attack by João Almeida saw the Portuguese star solo to both stage 4 win and the overall lead in Itzulia Basque Country.
The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider had miscalculated late on in the previous day's racing, making a mistake in his line which arguably cost him the stage victory.
But there were no such errors of calculation Thursday's ascent of the ultra-steep Cat.1 Izua, when Almeida blasted clear some 13 kilometres from the line, then comfortably handled the fast, technical drop down to the finish in Markina-Xemein.
On a great day for UAE, Almeida's teammate Isaac del Toro was second at the head of a small group of chasers, 27 seconds behind. Race leader Max Schachmann (Soudal-QuickStep) finished third after fighting hard to defend his yellow jersey but ultimately had to hand over control of the GC to his Portuguese rival.
Almeida now has two tough days to stay on top of the overall, but as things stand, he is well positioned to try to follow on from his teammate Juan Ayuso as the outright winner of Itzulia Pais Vasco.
"I'm very pleased, I didn't feel like I had the best legs today but perhaps everybody was feeling like that after such a tough stage on Wednesday," Almeida, already the winner of a summit finish in Paris-Nice this March, said afterwards.
"I was well-placed on that final climb, even though I was quite a way back at the start because I didn't feel I had very much to give. But by keeping at my own steady pace, it all worked out."
"I gave it everything, I got first, and I'm very pleased as to how the team raced, too. So here we are."
How it unfolded
A fast start, with one early attack briefly including 2024 Itzulia mountains winner Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike), failed to work out and for more than an hour no breaks managed to stick. However, another move involving Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) on the relentless series of Cat.3 climbs proved more successful.
It helped that Simmons was later joined by teammate Andrea Baglioli (Lidl-Trek), Kuss (again), and six other riders: Ben Healy and Alex Baudin (Both EF Education-EasyPost), Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AIUIa), Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates - XRG) and Leo Bisiaux (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale). Finally, Txomin Juaristi (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Ander Okamika (Burgos-Burpellet-BH) bridged across and made it up to 11 in the break of the day.
The last of the six Cat.3 climbs, the gently rising Milloi, reduced the gap to 1:28 for the move ahead, even while taking maximum points at the top allowed Soler to move into the lead of the mountains classification. Cofidis and Bahrain Victorious set a ferocious pace in the pack on the flatter valley roads that followed, though, and as the decisive Izua approached, their advantage was definitely diminishing.
35 seconds with 20 kilometres to go was far small a margin for the 11 ahead to have any chance of staying away, and shortly afterwards they were all but reeled in, with a still very large peloton riding at full tilt as the road began to rise gently even before the official start of the decisive Izua ascent.
Okamika and Schmid did their best to stay clear, but to no avail, and Simmons himself quickly switched from breakaway to domestique mode, leading the bunch onto the foot of a short but very punishing climb.
The peloton shrank to just 40 riders in the agonisingly steep, wooded slopes of the Izua, allowing Bahrain Victorious.
As the road narrowed to the width of a car at most and wound its way up the side of a cliff at gradients averaging around 18%, Colombian climber Santiago Buitrago was the first to open fire. But GC contender Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was shadowing him closely, and Almeida was not much further back.
Almeida then opted to put in a trademark driving acceleration, slowly forcing a gap around first around the fourth wheel in the line of riders following him, then going clear 2.2 kilometres from the top.
Race leader Schachmann was already lagging behind, and as he told reporters afterwards, his main idea was to maintain a steady pace rather than risk going into the red. But there was no sign of Almeida doing that either, as the UAE leader easily conquered the steeper part of the ascent at the head of the race. The,n as the incline eased close to the top, of course, Almeida could push himself even harder and open up his margin even further.
Given the relative shortness of the climb, Almeida managed to carve out an impressively healthy advantage of around 33 seconds at the summit after pushing on through a line of cheering, flag- waving Basque fans.
However, neither Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL), Alex Aranburu (Cofidis) and Enric Mas (Movistar) showed any sign of giving up the pursuit as they led a powerful chase group on the ultra-fast, twisting drop off the Izua, particularly when skilled descenders like Schachmann and teammate Ilan van Wilder managed to regain contact and further boosted its firepower.
Yet they simply could not match Almeida, touching speeds of up to 80kph on a thankfully very dry descent and maintaining his margin easily as he shot downwards and past the outlying houses of the finish town.
Then, after negotiating a couple of technical corners without any of the errors of the previous day's finish, the 26-year-old finally had his second WorldTour stage victory of the season in the bag - and the GC and points leads in his power as well.
Looking ahead, Almeida has a 30-second advantage overall with two days remaining, and in a race often decided by margins of less than a minute, that could well be sufficient for the Portuguese rider to claim his first week-long stage race since the Tour de Pologne back in 2021.
Friday's rolling leg from Orduña to Gernika-Lumo is likely to end with a breakaway victory for non-GC contenders. But Saturday's toughest stage, including a repeat ascent of the ultra-difficult Izua, will surely see his rivals put Almeida to the test again.
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