Lotte Kopecky finally got her stage win at La Vuelta Femenina 2026, taking stage 4 in Borja after SD Worx-Protime controlled a tense late chase and delivered her to the line in perfect position. Anna van der Breggen completed a one-two for the team, with Letizia Paternoster finishing third after another selective and awkward day that never settled into a simple sprint rhythm.
The 111.6km stage looked open from the start. It was short, lumpy and far from straightforward, with two categorised climbs, an intermediate sprint just 5.2km from the finish and a rising run-in that invited both breakaway belief and late attacks from the bunch.
Early attacks finally produce the break
The opening phase was frantic, with multiple riders trying to force a move before the day’s first climb. Four riders briefly got clear, but that did not last, and the race remained unsettled until Annelies Nijssen and Marine Allione found the right moment to go.
The pair established a useful gap before the Alto de Oural, and that move soon became more significant when Lauretta Hanson bridged across, followed later by Marta Jaskulska. That gave the race a front quartet with a mix of strength and experience, and once they were established, the bunch finally began to calm after a hectic opening hour.
There was an immediate classification fight on the Alto de Oural. Allione took maximum points on the climb, with Nijssen second, while Maëva Squiban and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio followed behind from the peloton. That reshaped the queen of the mountains competition before the stage had properly settled.
Photo Credit: Naike EreñozagaThe break builds an advantage
Once the four leaders were properly organised, they started to make the stage awkward for the bunch. Nijssen was the best placed on GC and briefly became the virtual overall leader as the gap grew, while Allione and Jaskulska also moved into threatening territory on the road.
That forced the peloton to think carefully about how much freedom they could allow. FDJ United-SUEZ spent time on the front to protect Franziska Koch’s red jersey, but they never committed to an all-out chase too early. The break hovered around the two-and-a-half to three-minute mark for a long stretch of the stage, which kept the pressure on the race leader’s team while still leaving the stage result uncertain.
Up front, Hanson’s presence gave the move serious quality. She was arguably the strongest engine in the group, while Jaskulska and Nijssen both had the kind of depth needed for this sort of rolling terrain. Allione, meanwhile, had a second target beyond the stage itself, and made sure to take maximum points on the Alto do Hospital as well, enough to move into the mountains jersey on countback.
The bunch starts to turn the screw
The stage began to tighten once the peloton approached the Alto do Hospital. The climb itself was steady rather than explosive, which helped many of the sprinters and punchier finishers survive, but the pace behind was gradually increasing and the gap began to come down.
That mattered because the final 20km were never going to be easy for the break. The run-in included the late intermediate sprint, rolling roads, descents, short rises and a technical finish with two sharp bends before the final 300 metres. It was the kind of finale where a break could be caught very late and where a reduced sprint was still likely.
As the leaders hit the final phase of the stage, SD Worx-Protime made their intentions clear. Valentina Cavallar came to the front and started to take visible chunks out of the break’s advantage. AG Insurance-Soudal also contributed, likely with Shari Bossuyt in mind, while Liv-AlUla-Jayco later joined in for Letizia Paternoster.
Lotto-Intermarché naturally tried to disrupt that work with Nijssen up the road, but once Hanson and Jaskulska were the only real heavy engines left in the move, the break’s position became much more vulnerable. Allione was dropped, then Nijssen began to struggle, and by 10km to go the front of the race had been reduced to just Hanson and Jaskulska.
Late attacks complicate the chase
Even then, the catch was not straightforward. Hanson and Jaskulska were still working hard and briefly looked as though they might at least survive to the intermediate sprint. Nijssen was finally caught just before it, Koch took the final bonus second behind the break, and then the race immediately moved into its most nervous phase.
Movistar attacked repeatedly once the break began to come back, trying to turn the catch into something more selective. Sarah Martín went, then another Movistar rider tried to force a split, but SD Worx-Protime kept bringing everything back under control. The final 5km were downhill, then uphill again, and the changing gradients kept inviting more moves.
The barrier drama inside the last part of the stage added another moment of tension. Part of the barrier had collapsed, but the incident was well marshalled and it did not interfere with the sprint itself.
Kopecky finishes it off and moves into red
By the time the race entered the final kilometre, SD Worx-Protime had regained full control. Positioning mattered hugely, with a left-hand bend and then a right-hand bend before the final 300 metres, and the team made sure Kopecky started those corners exactly where she needed to be.
She was second wheel through the key turns, perfectly placed when the sprint opened. From there, Kopecky launched from around 200 metres to go and finally converted all of SD Worx-Protime’s work into a stage win. Van der Breggen came through for second to complete the team’s dominance, while Paternoster took third.
Behind the podium, Shari Bossuyt finished fourth and Franziska Koch was fifth, limiting her losses on a finish that favoured the faster puncheurs. Sarah Van Dam took sixth for Team Visma | Lease a Bike, with Liane Lippert seventh and Arlenis Sierra eighth for Movistar. Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka finished ninth for Canyon/SRAM zondacrypto, and Karlijn Swinkels rounded out the top 10 for UAE Team ADQ.
Further down the order, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot came home 11th, ahead of Mavi García in 12th and Juliette Berthet in 13th. Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney was 14th, while Andrea Casagranda, Anna van Wersch, Imogen Wolff, Titia Ryo, Marina Garau and Mia Griffin completed the top 20.
It was not a pure bunch sprint in the classic sense, but it was exactly the kind of reduced, technical finish that suited Kopecky once she had survived the climbing and had the right support around her. After near misses earlier in the race, this time she got it right.
The win mattered beyond the stage itself. The bonus seconds lifted Kopecky into the overall lead, giving her the red jersey at the end of the day. Franziska Koch dropped to second overall at 6 seconds, while Cédrine Kerbaol moved into third at 12 seconds. Van der Breggen’s second place on the stage also pushed her up to fourth overall at 20 seconds, completing a hugely successful day for SD Worx-Protime.
GC shaken up after Borja finish
For Koch, it was still a solid defensive ride even if she lost the race lead. She stayed attentive through a finale that could easily have become more chaotic and limited her losses as the stage turned against the pure GC defenders and in favour of the faster finishers.
Stage 4 never fully belonged to one type of rider. The break had a real chance, the punchier riders kept trying to disrupt the chase, and the sprinters had to survive the terrain before they could even think about the finish. In the end, SD Worx-Protime were the team that read it best, and Kopecky was the rider who finished it off and came away in red.
La Vuelta Femenina 2026 Stage 4 result
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