New Vuelta surprise on day four: Turner, flown in at the last minute, wins with powerful sprint, Vingegaard loses red jersey

The first mountain finish on Sunday brought a sprint between the GC contenders, with Vingegaard proving to be the best. The third stage then became more difficult than expected, and the fourth stage could have gone either way: from Susa in Italy, the riders crossed the Alps into France. The opening phase was quite mountainous, but the last 120 kilometers would have hardly any elevation gain. A day for the sprinters, attackers, or someone else? Only time would tell.

The mountainous first few hours would usually be an excellent opportunity for breakaway riders. The start was intense, but the breakaway of the day formed faster than expected. Five riders broke away: Louis Vervaeke (Soudal Quick-Step) was joined by his compatriot Kamiel Bonneu (Intermarché-Wanty), Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), and Mario Aparicio (Burgos Burpellet BH). The four were given considerable leeway by the peloton in the early stages: a maximum of about four minutes.

In the peloton, Lidl-Trek retook control. The team did a lot of work at the front to chase down the early breakaway, where the battle was mainly for the mountain points. After the second climb, Nicolau caught up with Alessandro Verre of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, the leader of the mountain classification. By reaching the top first, Vervaeke also closed the gap on the two riders to one point. All this while the Col du Lautaret was fast approaching.

Meanwhile, it became clear from the peloton that Valentin Paret-Peintre had dropped out. The Frenchman, who won on the legendary Mont Ventoux earlier this year in the Tour de France, was unable to continue due to illness. This meant that Mikel Landa lost a key domestique and Soudal Quick-Step lost a key rider in this Vuelta.

Quinn then decided to continue solo on the flanks of the Lautaret, leaving his four fellow breakaway riders behind. The American was the first to reach the top, earning five points in the mountain classification. However, it wasn't enough for the mountain jersey, as Nicolau earned three points behind the EF rider. This secured the Caja Rural rider the mountain jersey on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the peloton had closed in: Quinn's lead was just over two minutes. Almost all of the climbing was done after the Lautaret, and the riders had a very long descent ahead of them. It would take more than 70 kilometers to reach the bottom, although there was still a small plateau to overcome.

With 115 kilometers to go, the four chasers caught up with Quinn again, bringing the number of riders in the lead back to five. However, they didn't have much of a margin left: the peloton had closed the gap to about a minute and a half. Alpecin-Deceuninck saw that Jasper Philipsen had survived the climb, so the team added a man to the chase.

With just over 90 kilometers to go, it was already over for the breakaway riders. The peloton caught up with the five, and a new attempt by Aparicio was also very short-lived. So we entered the second part of the descent with a complete peloton.

Sinuhé Fernández had other plans. The Spaniard from Burgos, Burpellet BH, ventured into a solo effort, which the peloton was happy to let him do. The brave rider quickly built up a half-minute lead, which Fernández managed to maintain for quite some time.

With 30 kilometers to go, however, there was another intermediate sprint planned in Noyarey, where bonus seconds could be earned in addition to points for the green jersey. In the run-up to this, Fernández's adventure was over. The question was whether Gaudu would get involved in the intermediate sprint. The Frenchman from Groupama-FDJ was tied with Vingegaard in the standings and could take over the red jersey.

The answer was yes, and that resulted in an interesting sprint. Lidl-Trek provided the lead-out for Mads Pedersen, and the Dane won the sprint. Ethan Vernon and Jake Stewart finished second and third, respectively, for Israel-Premier Tech. Gaudu could make another attempt to take the red jersey at the finish: if the Frenchman finished eight places higher than Vingegaard, he would take over the red jersey.

Immediately after the intermediate sprint, it was Bruno Armirail who accelerated on behalf of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale. Team time trial a day later or not: the Frenchman wanted to try his luck in a time trial in this stage. In no time, Armirail had gained half a minute.

The French rider kept pedaling hard and pulled away to a three-quarter-minute lead. However, the peloton seemed to realize the seriousness of the situation in time, quickly increasing the pace. With sixteen kilometers to go, it was all over for the Frenchman. The peloton had been aiming for a sprint all day, and it looked like that was what was going to happen.

But not before there was another crash. Several riders went down on a narrow section of the road, with George Bennett (Israel Premier-Tech) being the worst affected. The New Zealander, like the other riders who had crashed, got back on his bike.

As the last five kilometers were being passed, we saw Vingegaard drop back, which made things look good for Gaudu's red jersey. No one in the peloton seemed to want to take the lead early on, which slowed the pace down somewhat—a near-crash gave the viewers a scare, after which the sprint was underway.

Alpecin-Deceuninck seemed to have good timing, but Pedersen was also well-positioned. There was some pushing for positions in the final kilometer, after which Philipsen attacked. Pedersen suddenly seemed to be far behind, and Philipsen appeared to be a little boxed in. Suddenly, Turner showed up and, with a powerful sprint, left everyone behind. It was the third professional victory for the Brit, who was flown in at the last minute to replace Lucas Hamilton in this Vuelta.