Bert-Jan Lindeman was part of a breakaway during the fourth stage of the Vuelta a España on Tuesday for the second time in four days. The Dutchman of Team LottoNL-Jumbo led the race together with six others for almost 200 kilometres in the day just shy of 210  kilometres.

The attackers were caught ahead of the short, but steep final climb in Vejer de la Frontera, where Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde sprinted to the stage victory. Esteban Chaves of Orica-GreenEDGE is still leading the overall.
George Bennett led Team LottoNL-Jumbo home. The New Zealander finished 35th, 41 seconds behind Valverde.

Merijn Zeeman
“Every day we try to estimate if an attack has the chance to succeed,” Sports Director Merijn Zeeman said. “Today, because of the tough final kilometres, we knew that the sprinters’ wouldn’t want to control. We also knew that the teams of Valverde, Rodriguez and Sagan were interested but that if they’d started looking at each other, an attacking style could be rewarded. In the end, Bert-Jan didn’t get enough space.”

Bert-Jan Lindeman
Lindeman forced the break himself on Tuesday. “Already my second attempt was successful,” he said. “We worked well together and managed to take a lot of time, around 13 minutes, but in the second part of the stage, the roads were too wide. The peloton was able to speed along, and the pace went up more with the crosswinds that caused stress.

“I’ve been in the break twice now, but I still feel good. I trained hard for this Vuelta. I hope to actually fight for victory later on in the race.”

Sprint
Wednesday’s fifth stage of the Vuelta a España will start in Rota. It finishes in Ronda after 167 kilometres. From start to finish, the stage is flat, which means the team could prepare itself to sprint with Tom Van Asbroeck again.

“Tom lost his team-mates in the sprint on Sunday, I was satisfied with the preparatory work,” said Zeeman. “But we want to do better tomorrow. These things are also important for the development of young men like Timo Roosen and Mike Teunissen.”