Primoz Roglic wins stage four TT and takes race lead at Itzulia Basque Country

Primoz Roglic won the time trial at the Basque Country for the second successive year to take the yellow jersey from Julian Alaphilippe on stage four.

Photo credit: naszosie.pl
Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo), one of the favourites for the stage given his performance last year, took 42-seconds out of race leader, Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors), who now sits 34-seconds adrift on general classification.

 Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) finished ninth on the stage to jump to third on GC, Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hangrohe) came 12th to leap up to fourth, while Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) dropped to fifth overall.

The Stage

Remi Cavagna (Quick-Step Floors) set the scorching early benchmark at the first intermediate split but faded catastrophically in the final section.

Patrick Bevin (BMC Racing) set the first fast time, notching 22'35" on the 19.4km pan flat out and back course around Lodosa. Team Sky's key time trial men, Vasil Kiryienka, Jonathan Castroviejo and Michal Kwiatkowski, couldn't top the New Zealander but their climber teammate David de la Cruz came home seventh, just about keeping his general classification podium ambitions alive.

Next came a plethora of top 20 climbers, but with none being known for their time trialing abilities, they were left to limit their loses on a course for the powerful riders. 

Roglic, only eight seconds down on Alaphilippe at the start of the day, proved once again how much of a good rider he is against the clock, stopping it nine seconds before Bevin's time to repeat his result in the same stage last year.

Alaphilippe put in a good showing though, dropping only 42-seconds to the Slovenian, and leaving the window open for the Frenchman to try and win the leaders jersey back in the mountains on stage six in a couple of days time.

Stage Four Result

1. Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) in 22'26"
2. Patrick Bevin (BMC Racing) at 9"
3. Vasil Kiryienka (Team Sky) at 11"
4. Jonathan Castroviejo (Team Sky) at 14"
5. Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) at 20"
6. Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) at 36"
7. David de la Cruz (Team Sky) at 37"
8. Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) at 42"
9. Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) at 43"
10. Damiano Caruso (BMC Racing) at 43"

General Classification

1. Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) in 13:41:26
2. Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) at 34"
3. Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) at 1'33"
4. Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe) at 1'36"
5. Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) at 1'42"
6. Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) at 1'48"
7. Mikel Landa (Movistar) at 1'51"
8. Pello Bilbao (Astana) at 1'57"
9. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) at 2'08"
10. Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) at 2'11"

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