Tour of Valencia 2019 Route stage 4: Villarreal - Alcossebre

Saturday 9 February - The 4th stage of the Tour of Valencia starts in Villarreal to finish atop a punchy climb near Alcossebre. Amounting to 188 kilometres, the route takes in three intermediate climbs.

Villarreal is home to Villarreal CF, a football club playing in the Primera División. The pro-cycling peloton visited the town in 2017, when it hosted a stage of the Vuelta a España. The race went to Sagunto and breakaway rider Tomasz Marczynski took the honours ahead of Pawel Poljanski and Enric Mas.

The peloton returns to Villarreal for the start of the Queen Stage of the La Vuelta a la Comunidad Valenciana (as the Spaniards call the race). The route takes in three intermediate KOM climbs: Alto de Culla (11.3 kilometres at 4.8%), La Bandereta (4.4 kilometres at 6.7%) and La Sarratella (10.7 kilometres at 3.9%).

The finale is played out on the slopes below the Ermita de Santa Lucía y Sant Benet. The 2017 Vuelta also visited this place in 2017. The day before the successful Marczynski break Alexey Lutsenko climbed to victory near the hermitage.

Shortly after the passage through coastal town Alcossebre the final haul up appears. It is a 3.4 kilometres toil with an insane first half. This section comes with a whooping average gradient of 14.7%, while the full Santa Lucía hill slopes at 9.7%.

Ensuing read: results/race report 4th stage 2019 Tour of Valencia.