Tinkoff-Saxo’s Alberto Contador and Roman Kreuziger finished in the first chasing group on stage 4 of Tirreno-Adriatico. Contador crashed with 50km to go, but didn’t lose time to his GC rivals except Wout Poels, who won the stage with 14 seconds.

Peter Sagan showed great signs as he nearly made the cut on the final climb. Following the stage finish, team manager Bjarne Riis comments that he was satisfied with the team performance and the fact that Peter Sagan showed good signs on the final climb.

"It was a pretty demanding and tough stage and a hard climb in the finale. Alberto was hit a little bit from the crash he had and felt he wasn't there to attack. I think we did okay today and Peter was almost there in the end. I consider this to be very positive and I feel he has made good progression. It was a difficult stage for a rider like him. He almost managed to stay there in the climbs and this is a good sign for the upcoming Classics”, said Bjarne Riis.  

Peter Sagan, who finished 26th, 23 seconds down on the chasing group, recognized that the final 4km climb of around 10% was a bit too much in the end.

“It was quite a tough and hard stage. We wanted the squad to work for Alberto and me, but at the end the climb turned out to be a bit too tough and I dropped back, crossing the finish line about 30 seconds behind the leaders. I didn't have the force to stay with the group."

With about 50km to the finish line, Alberto Contador suffered a crash on the descent of the intermediate mountain pass of the stage, losing control of his rear wheel due to a stream of water on the asphalt.

“Yes, it was unfortunate. I was braking a little and I lost the wheel on the water. Luckily it is nothing, only a superficial wound on the right hip and knee. I hope to recover quickly from this tomorrow and do well on the Terminillo stage, which suits me much better than the climb we had today”, comments Alberto Contador before adding about the stage result:

“The seconds that Poels gained are always very important in a race like Tirreno-Adriatico, but it all depends on what happens on tomorrow's stage. I think some of my rivals such as Nibali lost some seconds, but the final result will depend on what happens in both the Terminillo stage and in the final time trial. We'll see tomorrow how I feel”.

Stage 4 from Indicatore to Castelraimondo featured 226 kilometers. After the first flat part of the stage, things got hectic as the riders went into more undulating terrain. Chris Juul-Jensen tells that it was around this time that Alberto crashed.

"When Alberto had the small crash approximately 50km from the finish some of us waited and brought him back, but it was during a quite hectic part of the stage, just after the categorized long climb. We then all did our part to make sure that Peter, Alberto, Ivan and Roman were well-placed at the bottom of the first two climbs of the lap”, explains Juul-Jensen.

In the end, it was Team Sky’s Wouter Poels, who countered an attack on the last part of the final climb. And after a fast descent towards the finish in Castelraimondo, he crossed the line 14 seconds ahead of the decimated first chasing group of 17 riders. Roman Kreuziger was the first from Tinkoff-Saxo to cross the line, as he came in sixth on the stage.