Vuelta a España 2024

Stage 4 – Plasencia > Pico Villuercas (167km)

Tue 20th Aug | KM0: 13:27 CET

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Where: Extremadura in western Spain heading south-east to the Sierra de Villuercas mountain range.  

Stage Type: Mountain.

Weather: Mid 30s so very hot again with no chance of rain. Cooler on higher ground but not by much.

Climbs: Four classified climbs ending with the toughest – the first-category summit finish to Pico Villuercas (14.6km at 6.2%).

Start: Up a second-category climb (9.2km at 5.4%) after about 10km meaning the breakaway should be full of strong climbers.

Finish: The bare numbers of the Pico Villuercas climb do not tell the whole story. The final 5.5km average a leg-breaking 12.5% and has sections touching 20%, so this is where the action should take place.

Stage suits: Climbers and GC favourites.

Breakaway chances: Possible but probably less than 50/50. With the GC hierarchy still to settle down, no team may be willing to ride a hard pace on the front all day giving a group of good climbers a chance of staying away. That said, the final climb is so brutal that they’ll need a big headstart before they hit it.  

What will happen?: A decent-sized group will get away on the first climb and Visma Lease a Bike will start riding on the front. Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe or UAE Team Emirates may take it up going into the final climb or just leave it to Visma. The field will explode in the final 5km and we’ll get a much better sense of the climbing hierarchy in the race. It’s in the balance whether that will be for the stage win or if the break stays away but the finish probably tilts it towards a win for the GC favourites.

Stage 4 Contenders

Primož Roglič (3/1; 4.0) delivered a good time trial despite still hurting from his Tour de France fall and is the effective GC leader. How good is his level? We don’t really know, and he may not either – we’ll have a better idea after the stage but given the caveats, his price is too short to be getting involved.

Sepp Kuss (11/1) was hit by a bad bout of Covid in June and missed the Tour but came back strongly to win a stage and the overall at the Vuelta a Burgos earlier this month. He may be fresher than others and the defending champion will be looking to claw back some of the time he lost in the time trial on a high-gradient climb that suits.

Michael Woods (14/1) got sick earlier in the year and therefore, like Kuss, is lightly raced but did show well in the recent Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa. His Israel-PremierTech teammate, Matthew Riccitello (50/1), will by all accounts also be a protected GC rider for the first week but infiltrating the early break might be an option for someone that may go under the radar.

Richard Carapaz (16/1) came back from a nasty facial injury suffered in the Tour de Suisse to wear yellow for a day, win a stage and finish in the polka dot jersey in the Tour de France – not a bad return at all. If he’s maintained that level then he has every chance here.

Enric Mas (16/1) had a disappointing Tour but tends to come good at this time of year. Considering his talent, he doesn’t win much, however, so the price doesn’t appeal. Pelayo Sanchez (66/1) and Einer Rubio (80/1) are other cards to play for Movistar with the former the least likely to be marked should he try to get up the road.

Mattias Skjelmose (14/1) has been handed the Lidl-Trek team leadership and will ride for GC in a Grand Tour for the first time. The Vuelta has been his focus all year and he comes in fresh. Giulio Ciccone (33/1) is an excellent back-up, and both have a good uphill sprint should it come to that.

Lennert Van Eetvelt (18/1) is another young rider who will lead a team’s GC ambitions for the first time. Has had a disrupted year with a knee injury and then being hit from behind by a car whilst on a training ride. The Lotto Dstny youngster looks to be coming in hot though with a podium finish at Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa and has already shown his eagerness with a fifth-place finish on stage 2.    

Adam Yates (18/1) and João Almeida (28/1) are the UAE Team Emirates co-leaders having both helped Tadej Pogačar to his third Tour win in July. Showed in the Tour de Suisse that they work well together finishing first and second in no less than four stages as well as the overall. Like many others that rode in France, their levels are unclear but if they’re anything like what they have been in the last two months then their prices are big.

If UAE fancy putting someone up the road to take away responsibility for the chase, then last year’s Tour de l’Avenir winner, Isaac del Toro (50/1), would be an excellent card to play.   

Mikel Landa (22/1) showed great form at the Tour in support of Remco Evenepoel. Again, we don’t know if that form has been held or not.

Victor Lafay (28/1) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (40/1) look to be decent breakaway hopes for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale though the French team’s results have tailed off somewhat since their blistering start to the season.

Stage 4 Bets

It’s going to be really interesting to see how the GC contenders measure up against each other as we can’t be confident of levels post-Tour. So it’s probably best to lean towards those that didn’t ride in France and had the Vuelta as more of a specific target. Let’s chuck in a couple of breakaway candidates too in case it goes all the way.

Mattias Skjelmose 1pt each way (4 places) @14/1

Lennert Van Eetvelt 1pt each way (4 places) @18/1 – 2nd

Matthew Riccitello 0.5pts each way (4 places) @33/1 – 6th

Isaac del Toro 0.5pts each way (4 places) @50/1

Posted 21:36 BST Mon 19th Aug 2024

Prices quoted are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change

Stage 4 Result

1st Primož Roglič (3/1F)

2nd Lennert Van Eetvelt (18/1)

3rd João Almeida (28/1)

4th Enric Mas (16/1)

[Tour de France stage profiles reproduced by kind permission of Ben Lowe at Veloviewer.com]