The early breakaway gathered several minutes of advantage in the first part of the stage in no time. In the end, the advantage was enough for Norwegian Torstein Træen. He won the stage at the top of the Gotthard Pass. 

Behind him, a first real battle unfolded between the general classification riders. Uijtdebroeks and Kelderman were attentive at the front of a depleted group when a crash by another rider brought down Kelderman as well. The Dutchman was then forced to chase, an effort that proved to take a lot of energy.

Adam Yates attacked not much later, after which the group split. Uijtdebroeks was unable to follow and fought his way to the top with four other riders. The Belgian finished ninth in the day's result.

Just behind Uijtdebroeks, Kelderman regained a good pace. The 33-year-old climber picked up the dropped riders one by one, but despite his good form finished only twelfth. Kelderman is fifth in the general classification after stage four, three places ahead of his teammate Uijtdebroeks.

"Actually, I felt pretty good today," Uijtdebroeks responds afterwards. "It was the first long effort since my abandonment in the Giro d'Italia. I feel my body is getting stronger every day. Unfortunately, I missed the power the moment Yates and later Skjelmose attacked. Despite losing a bit, the differences are not very big yet. In the coming days we will try to move up in the GC. It was very unfortunate to see Wilco drop out of the group of favorites in this way. He fought hard and made up a lot of time. We're both not in a bad position, so we can definitely do something in the coming days. The time differences are not too big.”