MONTBRISON, France —
Filippo Ganna of Ineos Grenadiers won stage 4 of cycling’s Criterium
du Dauphine on Wednesday edging his key rival Wout van Aert on the 31.9km
time-trial with a sizzling time of 35min 32sec.
اضافة اعلان
For Van Aert this
was a second runner-up spot in two days after he celebrated too soon on
Tuesday’s hilltop finish and was pipped at the line by David Gaudu.
Van Aert,
however, not only retains the overall leader’s yellow jersey, he moves some
53sec ahead of Mattia Cattaneo in second and 56sec ahead of title pretender
Primoz Roglic who is third.
Olympic
time-trial champion Roglic was fifth on the day and his Jumbo co-captain Dane
Jonas Vingegard was seventh.
The pair are well
placed for a tilt at the title in the eight-day race, which is generally a
mountain test but this year featured the potentially pivotal time-trial.
Known by his fans
as ‘Top Ganna’, the giant Italian 25-year-old double world champion registered
an average speed of 53.865km/h on a stage which was a pure test of power, with
no hills or technically difficult sections.
All-rounder Van
Aert, who finished second to Ganna in the last two world championship time
trials, was just 02sec adrift of the former track specialist.
On a blustery day
with low-hanging clouds, the race remained largely rain-free in the open
countryside of central eastern France.
The only outburst
was EF’s Brandon McNulty losing his temper when he had a mechanical that cost
him a GC place.
Thursday’s stage
five is relatively flat, Friday sees a return to the hills and the two
concluding stages at the weekend take on 1,500m altitude mountains.
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