Warren Barguil rode a strong finishing climb on the fourth stage of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya to finish within a minute of the stage winner, coming over the line in 15th on the stage.

Day four was the queen stage and another chance for the GC favourites to claw back the lost time from the opening stage over the day’s climbs. The front of the race was reduced over each of the day’s ascents, with the lead group finally catching the last two remaining escapees, of an original group of five, on the last climb of the day.

Barguil hung on for as long as possible as the attacks started to fly and then once he had lost the leaders he continued to set his own fast pace to limit his loses, eventually finishing just outside the top ten, just 34” down on the winner. At the front of the race, Tejay van Garderen (BMC) held on to a slender lead at the finish after a strong solo attack in the final kilometres. Bert De Clerq (Lotto-Soudal) moved into the overall race lead by less than 30”, just holding on to enough from his buffer gained on the first stage.

Earlier in the stage Team Giant-Alpecin were reduced to six riders as firstly Tom Stamsnijder pulled out, suffering an off day, and the Daan Olivier was the next to stop following a crash on a descent. Olivier suffered bruising to his hand and will receive further checks from the team’s physicians this evening to make sure that no further damage has been done.

After the stage, Johannes Fröhlinger said to the Giant-Alpecin website:

“After losing the possibility of a top 10 place on GC for Warren yesterday and with a few sprint opportunities coming up we wanted to make it a stage without any real pressure, although with the profile it was really the queen stage.

“Warren still wanted to give it a go and showed his qualities today given that he’s not feeling his best here. For me I’m also not at my best after a period of no racing and the knee problems I had during my preparation for the season, but I’m getting into the rhythm now and everyday is getting better and better.

“We had a slight scare when Luka was dropped with around 100km to go and still three big climbs to get over when the pace was high early on, but we didn’t panic and kept a good rhythm on the climbs and ended up in a big grupetto and made it home within the time cut. We lost Daan and Stammie today which will mean we adapt the situation for the coming days but regardless we will make a good plan for tomorrow.”