Przemyslaw Niemiec had positioned himself inside the top 10 in the Volta a Catalunya and was looking to defend his position in today's queen stage. Unfortunately, the Pole is one of several riders suffering from stomach problems and with a time loss of 25 minutes, his GC campaign is now over.

Yesterday Przemyslaw Niemiec had given hope that he could finish in the top 10 of the Volta a Catalunya for the second year in a row when he finished 10th in the first queen stage of the race. On a bad day for Lampre those hopes were dashed in today's queen stage.

Already from the beginning, things were bad for the Italian team which had to take off without Christopher Horner, the American preferring to head home to avoid aggravating his Achilles tendon injury. When the race started, Niemiec suffered from stomach problems and he ended up finishing in the gruppetto, more than 25 minutes behind stage winner Tejay van Garderen.

The only bright point for the team was Jose Serpa who attacked on the penultimate climb to bridge across to early attackers Thomas De Gendt and Ruben Plaza. However, it wasn't to be for the Colombian who was caught with 8km to go.

"Today the goalwas to keep Niemiec in top 10 contention," sports director Jose Fernandez Matxin said. "Przemyslaw has all the qualities to be at this level, but unfortunately, already from the start he was not well and, after a stage of suffering, he reached the finish with a large time loss.

"Serpa did well by anticipating to try to avoid the battle between the big names, but unfortunately the action did not have a long life. Jose still deserves compliments. 

"Regarding our other boys, the cold has greatly limited their potential. Now our priorities change. There is no longer reason to focus on the GC."

You can read our preview of stage five here.