Torstein Træen (Bahrain-Victorious) won stage 4 of the Tour de Suisse today, after the Norwegian rider survived a late assault from Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) to claim his first professional victory.
Træen distanced his last breakaway companion Roland Thalmann (Tudor) along the final ascent of the Gotthardpass with 10km to go, later opeing up a sizeable gap of 3:46 over a semminglly complacent peloton.
Træen and Thalmann were the last of the escapees to survive from the day’s breakway group, which had gotten underway some 140km ago.
However, a powerful late move from Yates saw Træen’s lead melt away, as the British rider scorched his way up the 8.1km climb to finish just 23 seconds down on the line.
Meanwhile, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) and Yates’ teammate Almeida were the next best GC riders on the climb, losing 25 seconds to the Briton with Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) rounding out the top five.
Yates took firm control of the GC with a 26-second lead over both Almeida and Skjelmose, while a crash earlier in the day saw Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) start to struggle inside the finale 5km of the day and he would cross the line some 3:16 down on the winner.
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