Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen on Tuesday held off a remarkable comeback by Ireland’s Sam Bennett to edge ahead in a photo finish and win the fourth stage of the Vuelta a Espana.
Jakobsen won a dramatic sprint to claim the narrowest of victories for Deceuninck-QuickStep in El Puig, after Bennett had made an impressive recovery from taking a wrong turn around a roundabout.
Germany’s Maximilian Walscheid of Team Sunweb was third, while teammate Nicolas Roche from Ireland retained the overall leader’s red jersey.
Roche maintained his lead over his two Colombian chasers, with Movistar Team’s Nairo Quintana two seconds behind and EF Education First Pro Cycling’s Rigoberto Uran a further six seconds back.
Jakobsen picked up his first Grand Tour stage victory in his debut appearance at the Vuelta after another relatively flat, 175.5km stage that was always likely to play to the sprinters.
“I don’t know how close it was, maybe a couple of millimeters,” Jakobsen said. “I just threw my bike at the line.”
“I knew [I had won] when I saw guys from team cheering,” he said. “I couldn’t see, because I had my eyes closed.”
Lotto Soudal’s Jelle Wallays and Burgos BH’s Jorge Cubero were the early escapees and even stretched their lead over the peloton to seven minutes with 139km left.
However, soon after the Puerto del Oronet category-three climb, Cubero was hit by a mechanical problem before Wallays was caught by the peloton with 18km remaining.
Bennett’s costly mistake came with just more than 5km to go as he went right around the penultimate roundabout, losing precious time on the leaders.
Max Richeze led out the sprint, with teammate Jakobsen close behind, only for Bennett to weave through the pack in a late surge for the line.
The photo finish showed Jakobsen had held on for the stage victory.
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