Vuelta a San Juan 2023 – Stage 4 [LAST KM]

January 25, 2023

Vuelta a San Juan 2023 – Stage 4 – Autodrómo de Villicum – Barreal : 196,5 km

The Vuelta a San Juan is a week-long stage race held in and around the eponymously-named region of western Argentina. It’s one of the biggest races to take place in South America and, falling right at the start of the year, it offers riders from across the globe an opportunity to kickstart their seasons with a bang. The race’s first edition was held in 1982, but it wasn’t until 2017 when the UCI upgraded it to 2.1 status that it became an internationally recognised event. It was bumped up again in 2020, to the UCI’s ProSeries. These upgrades have helped to increase the prestige of the race and, in turn, attract more and more world-class riders to Argentina to compete. Since 2017 and its arrival on the international racing calendar, the Vuelta a San Juan has followed a similar format with a handful of flat stages, a couple of mountain stages and an all-important individual time trial. It’s a perfect race for all-rounders, as well as a fantastic warm-up for the bigger races that often follow in February and March.

Fernando Gaviria secured his first win of the season in the colours of his new team Movistar on a fast run-in to Barreal, outsprinting Peter Sagan (Total Energies) and Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) in stage 4 at the Vuelta a San Juan.

Ganna was the first to launch his sprint from 400 metres out, trying to catch the sprinters off guard, but Gaviria took no chances after Movistar set the pace at the head of the peloton for most of the day.

Gaviria quickly reacted to Ganna’s attack, latched onto the World Hour Record holder’s back wheel, and then sprinted past the Italian to win the stage and take the leader’s jersey.

Sagan wasn’t quite able to come around Gaviria and finished in second place on the day, leaving Ganna to settle for third place.

How it unfolded
With temperatures again approaching 40°C on Wednesday afternoon, the Vuelta a San Juan peloton was glad of the shelter afforded by the paddocks of the Villicum motor racing circuit before they took to the open road for stage 4. The soaring temperatures have exacted a toll on the bunch this week, and before the start, Stevie Williams (Israel Premier Tech) was the latest rider to withdraw through illness.

The afternoon began on a festive note, with world champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) serenaded at the sign-on as he celebrated his 23rd birthday. The world champion is the favourite to win this race, with Friday’s haul up the Alto Colorado expected to be decisive, but stage 4 had the potential for some general classification skirmishes, and so it proved.

The first half of the stage was essentially a long grind up to the summit of the Gruta Virgen de Andacollo, some 2,200 metres above sea level. The category 1 ascent itself was relatively gentle, but a climb of that length and altitude at this early point in the season was always likely to put the fast men under pressure, including race leader Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep).

If the sight of sprinters struggling to keep pace off the back was in line with the expected script, the presence of Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) in the day’s early break was something of a deviation from the expected script. A day after marking the one-year anniversary of his life-threatening training crash, Bernal’s aggression here was as heartening as it was surprising.

Bernal was part of a 14-rider group that escaped on the long haul through the sparse, parched Sierra de Talacasta, and at one point, the escapees built an advantage north of five minutes over the peloton. Tomas Contte (Argentina) led Juan Pablo Dotti (SEP San Juan) and Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani-CSF) over the summit of the category 1 climb, while Bernal himself went on the offensive over the other side in a bid to breathe new impetus into the move.

The long descent and valley that followed favoured the reduced peloton, however, not least because the remaining sprinters’ teams were now fully aware of the lie of the land. With Bennett and Jakobsen distanced, TotalEnergies and Movistar joined forces at the front on behalf of Peter Sagan and Fernando Gaviria, and their collaboration doomed Bernal and the escapees, who were swept up with 50km or so remaining.

The category 3 climb to Calingasta didn’t create any further separation in the 50-strong peloton, where TotalEnergies and Movistar did more than enough to ensure there would be no way back for the dropped fast men, though the long, shallow drag towards the finish town of Barreal lent itself to late attackers.

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