Race organizer RCS Sport had chosen mountainous terrain for stage 4 of Tirreno-Adriatico 2025, which would take the riders 190 kilometers from Norcia to Trasacco. Though the stage started with multiple climbs, the the final part of the stage would be flat. The stage followed yesterday’s exhausting stage, which had been dominated by very rainy weather conditions.

A quintet formed the long breakaway of the day when they escaped from the peloton and showed great courage on their bikes. Jonas Rutsch (Intermarche-Wanty), Jorge Arcas (Movistar Team), Gijs Leemreize (Team PicNic-PostNL), Mirco Maestri (Team Polti-Visit Malta), and William Blume Levy (Uno-X Mobility) were the riders involved, and they got a lead of more than six minutes. 

Jonathan Milan was dropped from the peloton early in the stage. The Lidl-Trek rider was fighting illness. 

The front group had a time advantage of more than four minutes when they approached the final significant climb of the day – the Valico La Crocetta (12.5 km, average gradient 5.6 percent).

The main peloton was spearheaded by riders from Team Visma-Lease a Bike and the speed on the climb caused several riders to get dropped from the peloton.

The windy weather conditions in the mountains caused splits in the main peloton when the riders passed through the feed zone with eighty kilometers left. Ineos-Grenadiers riders were setting a very fast pace and their strong riders split the wind that proved unable to stop them. 

Multiple echelons were formed in the valley while the riders could watch the snowy mountainsides. Even race leader Filippo Ganna delivered a strong performance at the front – this was a great challenge for the powerful time trial specialist. Several general classification challengers had been dropped and were chasing hard.

The advantage of the front quintet had been reduced to 02:30 minutes because of the actions taking place between the main contenders in the main peloton.

The race was still split into several smaller groups when 65 kilometers of the stage remained.

The breakaway group was still intact but now had a lead of 01:40 minutes over the first part of the peloton, which was chasing hard. A group featuring Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Derek Gee (Team PremierTech), Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep), and Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) were chasing 02:15 behind the first breakaway). Other riders were further behind.

Ineos-Grenadiers riders were still dominating the front of the front peloton group. They were riding at very fast speeds to take advantage of the echelons that had been formed in the strong winds, to improve the odds of their general classification favorites and perhaps even get the opportunity to fight for a stage victory. Filippo Ganna was still one of the riders actively engaged as was Michal Kwiatkowski. Juan Ayuso and Isaac del Toro were also in the peloton group for UAE Team Emirates.

It had started raining and Simon Yates (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) and Alex Aranburu (Cofidis Team) were dropped from the first peloton group and fell back to the Landa group.

The advantage of the riders in the long breakaway of the day had been reduced to 40 seconds.

Jonas Rutsch crashed in the front group while cornering as the road was wet and full of construction work gravel. He was later swallowed by the chase groups. The four remaining breakaway optimists charged on.

Mikel Landa suffered a punctured rear tire and had to wait for the team service car when 22 kilometers remained.

When 16 kilometers remained of stage 4, Blume Levy, Maestri, Leemreize, and Arcas were still in front. A small group headed by Ineos-Grenadiers was chasing twenty-five seconds behind, while a larger peloton group was further back. This group was headed by Soudal-QuickStep riders, hoping to return team captain Landa to the Ineos group before the end of the stage, so he would not suffer a time loss in the general classification. The two peloton groups merged, and Soudal-QuickStep had apparently succeeded.

Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) attacked with five kilometers left. Filippo Ganna countered, as did Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck). The riders in the long breakaway of the day were caught.

Healy, Maestri and Blume forged a new front trio. They had ten seconds with two kilometers remaining. Strong Irishman Healy did all the hard work. The group was still leading when they reached the final kilometer.

The front trio was caught with 400 meters remaining.

Ganna opened his sprint, but Olav Kooij countered and was the first man across the finish line in Trasacco. Olav Kooij won the stage for Team Visma-Lease a Bike. Rick Pluimers finished second, while Mathieu van der Poel completed the stage podium.

Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com for further coverage from Tirreno-Adriatico 2025.