Ireland's Danny Martin finished second as Movistar's Benat Intxausti won the fourth stage of the Tour Of Beijing.
A fourth 150.6km stage of Yanqing to Mentougou Miaofeng Mountain was the toughest stage of this race.
The riders rolled out on a cloudy day with six riders in Zdenek Stybar and Stijn Vandenbergh both of Omega Pharma Quick Step, José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios of Movistar, Damiano Caruso of Cannondale, Moreno Hofland of Belkin and Maurits Lammertink of Vacansoleil were the escapers
Between them, they took the early points and it was Zdenek Stybar who took the first sprint of the day at Nan Kou Town. The Omega Pharma rider was only third behind Movistar's Jose Gutteriez on the first category one climb at Xian Ren Dong Village
That was followed by a category two climb at Gao Ya Kou which Damiano Caruso crested over for the eight points and Guttierez taking the second sprint after 92.5kms at Xi Feng Shan Village.
The six riders were never allowed to get too far ahead and they were only 1.25 ahead when Hofland took the third sprint at Yang Fang Village.
With the sprints done for the day, that just left the two climbs. With 25kms to go, Stijn Vandenbergh went away and took the five points for the penultimate climb on Chan Jia Zhuang
The final climb to the finish line was a twelve kilometre climb up the Mentougou Miaofeng Mountain and with race leader Nacer Bouhanni back down the road, anyone who could get clear was in with a chance of not only winning the stage but taking overall controll.
Belkin got to the front with 8.5kms to go after Vandenbergh had been swept up, followed by Team Sky with Josh Edmondson and Joseph Dombrowski, who launched an attack which saw a Belkin rider straight onto his wheel.
Adam Hansen of Lotto Bellisol took over but Marco Pinnotti who retires after this race, joined him along with Josh Edmondson.
Garmin Sharp's Danny Martin started to control the attacks with five kilometres to go. David Lopez of Team Sky and Jan Bakelants of RadioShack worked together but they did not escape the clutches of the group of favourites led by Martin and Tony Martin as the X002 country road ramped up.
Lopez and Bakelandts lead of ten seconds was soon eradicated by Danny Martin and world champion Rui Costa who launched another attack. Martin marshalled him and then with two kilometres to go, Movistar's Benat Intxausti shot away.
There was no response and Intxausti took the win in 3.43.26, finishing three seconds ahead of Daniel Martin, who put in a very brave effort to get close to the winner, four seconds ahead of David Lopez, six seconds ahead of Rui Costa and eleven seconds ahead of Roman Bardet.
Movistar's Benat Intxausti leads the race by ten seconds from Danny Martin going into the final stage.