Former World Champion and Tour De France winner Cadel Evans of BMC won the fourth stage of the inaugral Tour Of Alberta.
A 169.5km 'queens stage' which started and finished in Black Diamond, saw BMC's Cadel Evans, Simon Geschke of Argos Shimano, Ben Day of UnitedHealthCare, Nic Hamilton of Jelly Belly, Antoine Duchesne of the Canadian National Team, Ryan Roth of Champion System, Tom Slagter of Belkin Clay Murfet of Smartstop & Zwizanski of Optum take a lead of 11.05 with 61kms gone.
The gap dropped slightly to 10.20 with 79kms to go on a stage which was all above one thousand metres in pouring rain and a changed stage to the original one planned for the Rocky Mountains.
Cadel Evans was the best placed rider at 11.17 down in the peloton and he worked with Tom Slagter, who had taken back the King Of The Mountains jersey after taking the first and second climbs of the day, and Simon Geschke to keep the pace high.
With 50kms to go, Geschke and Slagter attacked and soon built a 15 second lead.
They stayed away for just over sixteen kilometres before Evans, Day and Duchesne caught up to them.
Inside the final thirty kilometres, this five man band was a minute ahead of the chasers of Roth, Murfet, Zwizanski & Hamilton and eleven minutes ahead of the peloton.
Cadel Evans led the five riders into Black Diamond as the rain continued to come down.
All the riders were doing their turns on the front with 3kms to go but a kilometre later, Ben Day attacked. The UnitedHealthCare rider went onto the uphill finish and was caught as Cadel Evans sprinted for his victory of the season ahead of Geschke, Slaghter, Day and Duchesne, the most aggressive rider of the day in a time of 3.57.18.
Evans said: "Being in a group of five it was always a game of luck as i did not know about the finish of Geschke. "I was patient and waited until the end. In terms of terrain it was not so difficult, the shock was the cold and the fatigue from yesterday in the legs made it hard. "We collaborated well as a group and in the end it was time for me in the last five hundred metres."
The peloton finished at 9.43 and this means that Rohan Dennis keeps his leader's jersey going into the final stage with an eighteen second lead of Brent Bookwalter.