Ethan Hayter has retained his yellow jersey at Volta ao Algarve despite suffering a crash and being left with nasty looking road rash during today's stage 4 TT.
The Ineos Grenadiers rider lost control of his TT bike while descending and taking a sweeping left hander, crashing hard onto the tarmac and sliding across the road.
However, despite the road rash visible through his ripped yellow skinsuit he remounted and got on with the task at hand. The young British rider, who had taken the race lead with victory on stage 2, ended today's TT in 9th place.
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The 20.3km test in Lagoa was won by Danish champion, and Tour of Flanders winner, Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) by three seconds from Rafael Reis of Continental team Efapel. Benjamin Thomas (Groupama-FDJ) was 3rd at nine seconds.
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Hayter was 1:21 off the time of Asgreen but after the stage he was still in the yellow jersey; leading overall by 12 seconds from João Rodrigues (W52-FC Porto), with Asgreen now 3rd at 21 seconds.
Tomorrow's 170.1km final stage from Albufeira to Malhão features several climbs including a summit finish on the Alto do Malhão; a 2.7km ascent with an average gradient of nine per cent.
Considering he won so comfortably on the stage 2 uphill finish, Hayter (22) is favourite to wrap up the overall victory tomorrow as long as he is not suffering too much from his crash today.
The only Irish rider in the race, double stage winner Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep), was 63rd today at 2:32. He retains his lead in the points classification and should seal overall victory in that competition tomorrow.
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