Connor McConvey (left) on the podium at the end of today's fourth stage at the Tour of Azerbaijan
Connor McConvey has continued his early season purple patch, taking second on the queen stage of the Tour of Azerbaijan today on a summit finish at the end of a gruelling 25km climb – which turned a short 116km stage into something of an epic.
The big man from Belfast also did enough to take the leader in the climbers’ classification. With his Synergy Baku team already having taken a stage win, held the yellow jersey and now occupying the points and mountains jerseys, the Irishman and his team mates will very much be amongst the danger men for the Rás in a couple of weeks time.
McConvey was in an eight-man group that went clear very early into the action-filled queen stage and was to prove the strongest of those in the hunt for the stage win. However, Jan Hirt, a 22-year-old Czech rider with Leopard-Trek, sprung for the bunch and caught and passed all of the breakaway, including McConvey.
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Hirt flew up the long climb to the finish and in the end had four minutes to spare over McConvey in second place.
It was a great ride by the Irishman, who looks set to leave Azerbaijan with the climbers’ classification, a very important team and personal result riding his team’s home race in the squad’s first all-important year of operation.
After 20km today, six riders escaped including: McConvey (Synergy Baku), Jasper Bovenhuis (Rabobank Development Team), Nicolas Lüthi (Atlas Personal-Jakroo), Sean De Bie (Leopard-Trek), Dmytro Krivtsov (ISD Continental) and Diego Rubio Hernandez (Spain) who won the queen stage of the Tour d’Azerbaidjan in Ismayilli last year.
Kersten Thiele (Rad-net Rose) and Mikko Paajanen (Centre Mondial du Cyclisme) joined them to form a front group of eight.
A group of 20 riders then tried to counter-attack but were reined in by the peloton on the steep hill after the Qirdimanchay river. After 50km, with the toughest part of the stage still to come, the gap between the main peloton and the leaders had stabilised at 3:40.
The first king of the mountains prime at the 64km mark was won by De Bie, followed by Lüthi and Krivtsov. At that stage, the gap between the leaders and the main group was still 3:30.
After the second climb, Hirt escaped and then launched into his solo breakaway on the steep climb up to Shamakhi at 89km after overhauling the breakaway.
McConvey and Bovenhuis managed to keep up with him for a while, but the tempo he was setting eventually became too much for them. However, McConvey never panicked and simply rode up the climb banging out a nice tempo that was strong enough to take an excellent second place on the stage.
Hirt continued to surge ahead on his own, opening up a one-minute lead on the final long climb to Pirqulu. After that the gap between him and the rest continued to increase. With 12km to go, Hirt led, followed by McConvey, Bovenhuis and Rubio at 1:40, with the rest of the original breakaway scattered around five minutes back the road.
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Hirt managed to maintain his momentum to claim a precious solo victory at Pirqulu, finishing four minutes ahead of McConvey who is now 15th overall with just one stage remaining. Meanwhile, Grechyn retained the blue jersey as overall Tour leader.
Stage 4 podium placings:
1. Jan Hirt (CZE), Leopard-Trek
2. Connor McConvey (IRL), Synergy Baku Cycling Project
3. Dario Rubio Hernandez (SPA), Spain national team
Jersey holders:
Blue (Overall leader): Sergiy Grechyn (UKR), Torku Seker Spor
Red (King of the Mountains): Connor McConvey (IRL), Synergy Baku Cycling Project
Green (Points leader): Christoph Schweizer (GER), Synergy Baku Cycling Project
Flame (Best Azerbaijani rider): Eichin Asadov (AZE), Synergy Baku Cycling Project
White & violet (Best young rider): Bakhtiar Kozhatayev (KAZ), Astana Continental
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