Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale) won the fourth stage of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge between Avon and Steamboat Springs, as it finished in a bunch sprint. The 22-year-old Italian was delivered to the line by teammate Daniel Oss at the end of the 133.2km stage, and proved to be too fast for Michael Mørkøv (Saxo Bank-SunGard) and Kenny van Hummel (Skil-Shimano), who finished second an third behind him.
The sprint came at the end of a stage dominated by a breakaway from Javier Acevedo and Cristhian Montoya (both Gobermacion De Antioquia), Rubens Bertogliati and Vladimir Efimkin (both Team Type 1-Sanofi-Aventis), Stefan Denifl (Leopard Trek). The five riders were finally pulled back in with seven kilometres to go after race leader Levi Leipheimer’s RadioShack team kept them within reach for most of the day.
With the whole peloton finishing in the same time, with the sprinters swallowing up the time bonuses, the top of the overall classification is unchanged with Leipheimer leading Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Cervélo) by eleven seconds and Tejay Van Garderen by seventeen.
The five rider group escaped early in the stage after a number of unsuccessful attacks. Acevedo the best placed in the group, just 2’37” behind Leipheimer, but the gap was barely allowed to grow that size by the RadioShack team, which kept the tempo high in the peloton.
Into the second half of the stage RadioShack gradually reeled the group in, then left the rest of the work to the sprinters’ teams as the finish approached. With 27km to go UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling took over, as the gap to the leaders down to just 1’20”.
Team Exergy and Liquigas-Cannondale joined the chase as the race entered the final 25km, and with 23.5km to go the gap hit the one-minute mark; the five riders in the group were still working together well though.
Despite the cohesion in the break, the gap was steadily chipped away until, with a little over 7km to go, they were caught, with Liquigas-Cannondale controlling the front of the peloton. Having dropped out of overall contention Ivan Basso was working on the front as the race approached the final five kilometres. He gave way to Jens Voigt (Leopard Trek) though, who began to string out the peloton as Steamboat Springs came into sight.
Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) was getting involved with the front of the peloton with 3km to go, while, since his overall rivals Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Highroad) and Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Cervélo) were positioned close to the front, Leipheimer moved up to mark them.
With 2km to go Skil-Shimano took over on behalf Kenny van Hummel, hoping to take the Dutch team’s second victory of the day to add to that of Marcel Kittel in the Vuelta a España. UnitedHealthcare managed to muscle the Dutch team off the front for Robert Förster as the final kilometre approached though, but then Liquigas-Cannondlae pulled through as the finishing straight approached.
Into the final few hundred metres Daniel Oss accelerated with Viviani on his wheel and, once he had pulled over the 22-year-old Italian was unbeatable.
Leipheimer and all the other contenders finished safely inside the peloton, and so the RadioShack rider holds on to the yellow jersey for another day.
Reactions to follow