Lipowitz and Pellizzari deliver masterclass at Tour of Slovenia stage 4

Stage four of the Tour of Slovenia has been won by Florian Lipowitz. The German crossed the line together with teammate Giulio Pellizzari in the queen stage, after a phenomenal display from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. The pair came over the line with almost a minute and a half in hand: Slovenian champion Jakob Omrzel (Bahrain Victorious) finished third.

Three stages, three sprints: this hadn't been the most thrilling race in Slovenia so far. Even the difficult third stage was controlled by Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, after which leader Laurence Pithie won his second stage. The New Zealander was, however, almost certain to lose his leader's jersey in stage four, as the climbing was about to get serious.

In the Triglav mountains, it was above all the final climb to the Vršič that was expected to make the difference. Before that came a hilly section, where a breakaway group saw its chance. A group of six riders — including Josh Burnett (Burgos Burpellet BH), Gorka Corres (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Jon Agirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Fausto Masnada (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort) and the Modern Adventure duo Stefan de Bod and Byron Munton — was given some room.

Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe did what they needed to do. The German team had brought both Florian Lipowitz and Giulio Pellizzari to the race, and so took on the responsibility of chasing. With forty kilometres to go, the gap was still two minutes, with the climb to the Vršič still to come: 12.7 kilometres long, averaging 7.8%.

There, the German team put a stranglehold on their rivals. Thanks to work from the likes of Jan Tratnik and Ben Zwiehoff, the other contenders were shed: Slovenian champion Jakob Omrzel hung on for a while, but when Pellizzari opened the throttle, the young talent also had to let go. As expected, it was Pellizzari and Lipowitz who went clear together.

The pair pushed to the front and caught the last of the escapees, Agirre and Masnada. Within no time, they were caught and dropped. In the final kilometres of the brutal climb, Lipowitz decided to press on alone. The German, who is using Slovenia as part of his Tour de France build-up, showed no mercy and demonstrated he was the strongest climber in the race.

Behind him, Omrzel was joined by Agirre and the returning Hugo de la Calle (Burgos Burpellet BH). The 21-year-old Spaniard impressed, but later had to let the Slovenian go again. Omrzel crested the climb in third, but by then Lipowitz already had almost two minutes in hand: Pellizzari was the first chaser, around thirty seconds back.

What followed was a hair-raising descent. The road up had been fully paved, but the other side was littered with cobbled sections. Lipowitz took no risks whatsoever on the treacherous descent, which meant Pellizzari — showing more daring — closed the gap and eventually rejoined his teammate. Behind them, Omrzel dropped like a stone.

The Slovenian knew the roads and used that knowledge to his advantage, but his deficit to the pair ahead was too great. Pellizzari towed his teammate through the rest of the descent, keeping their advantage stable. They crossed the line together: the stage win was handed to Lipowitz, who with it also took over the race lead.