King Of The Mountains leader Dani Moreno of Katusha won the Vuelta a España Stage Four.
41 year old race leader Christian Horner who said that his job was to keep the red jersey as long as possible and points leader Nicholas Roche, led the riders out on a 186.4km stage from Lain to Fisterra.
Jussi Viekkanen (FDJ), Alex Rasmussen (Garmin-Sharp), who took the first sprint of the day, Danilo Wyss (BMC), Dennis Vanendert (Lotto Belisol) and Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) formed a break with 12 kilometres gone and had a lead of six minutes with 127 kms to go.
It was down to 5.25 with 60kms remaining as the riders wanted to get into position for the Mirador climb which had gradients of up to 29%.
By the time, the three riders reached the climb after Vaikannen and Rasmussen dropped off the pace, the gap was down to 38 seconds.
A 'legbreaker' was one term being bandied about for this climb which had drawn large crowds and steep it certainly was. Some riders had to stop due to the steepness, whilst at the front, Nicholas Edet went away on his own.
The Cofidis rider took the full points beating Wyss and Nicholas Roche,
Txurruka caught up to Edet and they were joined by Herrada, LL Sanchez,, Nerz and Vicioso on the descent as speeds dropped to 70km/h after nudging 100km/h.
Edet, the most combatative rider of the day, tried to stay away after the quartet had been caught but he too was brought back into line and with 15 kilometres to go, the peloton was back tofether.
Five kilometres later and Fabian Cancellera was toiling hard on the front to get Horner home safely as the race moved towards the coast on the most westernly part of Galicia.
Inside the final kilometres and everyone was waiting and Dani Moreno shot away to win in 4.37.46 ahead of Fabian Cancellera, Michael Matthews, Gianni Meersman and Bauke Mollema. Nicholas Roche was tenth.
Chris Horner lost his race leaders jersey after finishing 26th and three seconds down, so Astana's Vincenzo Nibali leads Horner by three seconds and eight seconds ahead of Nicholas Roche.
Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) said to La Vuelta.com: “Chris Horner’s team had the objective to keep the red jersey, it comes as a surprise for me to get it back. I don’t know what happened. There might have been a gap somewhere… I didn’t do any great action. We targeted the stage for Maxim Iglinskiy but it was difficult to position him in this very fast sprint. It’s been a very nervous stage from 30km to go till here at the “end of the world”. We’ll ride the next stage with serenity. As I said the previous days, the Vuelta is still long. You have seen as well as I did who are my main rivals, Valverde, Rodriguez…, those who have taken some time bonus atop the hills. But we haven’t experienced the real climbs of the Vuelta yet. It’s been more of a nervous kind of racing so far. My team has managed to keep me up the front with caution and avoid too big gaps.”
Former race leader Chris Horner (RadioShack) also commented: “It’s not a bad thing to lose the red jersey by only a few seconds. It’s even better because it makes this my last interview until we reached the mountains where I’ll get the jersey back. For the sponsors, it’s better to see the red jersey every day but for me, it’s better this way. I have good legs. If my team takes care of me the way they can, I’ll have a fantastic Vuelta.”
Picture copyright of Unipublic/Graham Watson