Tejay Garderen has reportedly won the 4th stage of Volta Catalunya while 2013 Tour France champ Froome (Chris) finished around twenty-eight minutes behind the winner.
Tejay started off more than eighteen minutes down post crashing on the 3rd stage & hence according to many- Porte was the favorite for overall lead since the previous lead Pierre Rolland from Europcar & Maciej Paterski from CCC Polsat were being dropped earlier.
However, Bart Clerq from Lotto Soudal put up a valiant fight to cross finishing line forty-four seconds down to Porte – that was sufficient to render him a good 21 seconds of lead over Porte going into 5th stage.
“I was extremely motivated today”, stated Van Garderen.
“I altered the very tactic of striving to head for classification & concentrated wholly into stage. That’s all which I was focused on today.”
Albeit Porte badly missed out the lead position yet he could take some solace from Alberto Contadaor- the duo would be taking on each other come May at Giro.
After the attack from Tejay, Alberto came up with his very own move at the remaining 2.3 km & distanced Porte initially. But, Porte had a strong team-mate Kiryienka who helped him to catch up with Contador gradually that ultimately dropped the famous Spaniard in the last 500 m.
Froome had been ill lately that forced him to skip Tirreno-Adriatico last March yet he declared himself as all-right for the Catalunya race. The 2013 Tour France champ missed out on his chance in the 3rd stage after losing nineteen seconds to the rivals. His 4th day was no less than a catastrophe where he finished on 131st.
As Froome was completely out of picture, it was easier for Tejay to attack & march towards the great win with full aplomb.