Alejandro Valverde is back in the Volta a Catalunya after victory on stage four.
This year’s race, the fourth oldest in the world, had Thomas De Gendt in the leader’s jersey for a 170.8km stage from Llanars to La Mollina but was without Adam Yates who has fractured his pelvis.
The peloton stayed together in the early stages with Valderde taking the second sprint and the three bonus seconds.
After ninety kilometres, Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott) got clear and was briefly joined by Joey Rosskopf (BMC), Toms Skujinš (Trek-Segafredo) and Stephane Rossetto (Cofidis) before going clear only to be joined by Alejandro Valverde.
With the trio not working together, Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) flew off down the descent of the Coll de la Creueta before starting on the climb up to La Mollina.
Pierre Latour and Soler came over with eleven kilometres to go as did Valverde, Nairo Quintana and Egan Bernal of Team Sky.
Bernal tried to take everyone one but found himself up against the Movistar giants of Valverde and Quintana who worked together with Alejandro Valverde going ahead in the last 500 metres to take the win in 4.25.54 ahead of Bernal and Quintana.
Simon Yates finished seventh with Hugh Carthy in ninth place.
Valverde leads the race overall by 19 seconds from Bernal with Yates in fifth place.
KEV MONKS FOR DIGITAL SPORTS GROUP
Source: DSG
