Steele Van Hoff of Uni SA has won the fourth stage of the Santos Tour Down Under in South Australia.
Rohan Dennis after a superb victory on stage three was in the ochre jersey for a fourth 144.5km stage from Glenelg to Mount Barker. The BMC rider was in the KOM and Young Riders jersey but wearing them were Domenico Pozzovivo of AG2R and Tom Dumoulin of Giant Alpecin with Cadel Evans in the sprint jersey.
One hundred and thirty one riders started the stage and it was Boris Vallee of Lotto Soudel and Cannondale's Nathan Haas who were the first to go but after they had been joined by five more riders, the peloton brought them back as they did with a break involving Jack Bobridge of Uni SA.
Bobridge was involved again with another break along with Michael Hepburn of Orica GreenEdge, Peter Kennaugh of Team Sky SKY and Cedric Pineau of FDJ and took the climb at Sellicks Hill after 44.1kms before sitting up.
With 67km left the break was shut down and with no-one from the peloton really interested in starting a new attack, Darryl Impey took the first IInet sprint of the day.
Another break did form and this time, Ruslan Tleubayev of Astana, Maxim Belkov of Katusha and Pieter Serry of Elixx Quick Step, got away and were 2.25 ahead going into the final forty kilometres.
Belkov took the second sprint but the peloton were closing in and the lead was 1.45 when Tieubayev dropped back to the peloton.
Belkov and Sierry had a thirty second lead with 16.5kms left but at the 135.5km mark, they were caught and Luis Leon Sanchez and his Astana team mate Lars Boom launched a new attack and quickly joined by Gorka Izaguirre Insausti of Movistar.
Boom's time at the front was brief as that of Sanchez and Izaguirre and Tinkoff Saxo, IAM Cycling and Orica GreenEdge started to get their sprinters, apart from Marcel Kittel who was ten minutes back down the road, up to the front.
Under the flam rouge and Matt Haymen was on the front. But Steel Van Hoff came up on the right hand side to take the victory in 3.24.28 ahead of Darryl Van Impey and Wouter Wippert of Drapac, followed by Heinrich Haussler, Samuel Dumoulin, Niccolo Bonifazio, Rudi Selig, Gianni Meersman.Alafaci and Kim De Kort.
Behind them was a crash with 300 metres to go which held up most of the peloton with Olivier Le Gac of FDJ the first to go down, taking down Lorenzo Manzin of FDJ, Kenny De Haes of Lotto Soudel and Vladimir Isaichev of Katusha.
Speaking to Paul Sherwen, Van Hoff said about his victory: "Jack Bobridge was looking after me, saying be patient and I know these roads like the back of my hands and I trusted him and he delivered me into the final kilometre and then I just marked QuickStep with Renshaw here and it opened up for me. I sat on Wellens wheel and just went.
"With two stage wins and two days in the ochre jersey, it is fantastic for our team. We have a good team here. My goal is to try and get up into the World Tour. I am doing my best and this win helps."
Rohan Dennis was delayed by the crash but was given the same time and keeps his seven second lead over Cadel Evans going into stage five.
Pictures copyright and Courtesy of Santos Tour Down Under/Graham Watson