Michal Kwiatkowski moves closer to Tirreno-Adriatico victory

Michal Kwiatkowski minimises losses against rivals on stage four of Tirreno-Adriatico and head towards first WorldTour win

Michal Kwiatkowski on the podium after retaining his overall lead on Stage 4 of the 2014 Tirreno Adriatico

(Image credit: Graham Watson)

Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) took another step towards winning the Tirreno-Adriatico overall today. In a cold mountain-top finish in Lazio, the 24-year-old Pole kept a loose grip on the favourites, including stage winner Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), to preserve his blue leader's jersey.

"I'm really happy that I'm still in the leader's Jersey," Kwiatkowski said. "We expected some big attacks from Contador and [Nairo] Quintana, and they did it. They really pushed me to the limit but I'm really thankful to Wout Poels and Rigoberto Urán because they really did a good job for me, they set a good tempo on the last climb and I didn't lose so much time."

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