The battle that took place among the general classification favorites on the final climb of the fourth stage of the Tour of Hainan was decided in favor of Guillermo Silva. On the slopes of the ascent leading to the Baoting finish line, as expected, the men competing for the yellow jersey were once again called to show their cards. At the end of today's effort, the jersey returned to the shoulders of the Uruguayan from XDS Astana, who managed to dethrone Xabier Berasategi (sixth, two seconds back today) thanks to the acceleration in the final hundreds of meters that allowed him to secure the stage victory and, most importantly, ten precious bonus seconds.

"It was probably my best day on the bike ever. Yesterday I was hoping this day would go like this. I saw every detail of the climb, I knew where I needed to make my move and my legs responded perfectly" the XDS Astana rider told our microphone after the finish.

"The team gave me complete confidence in this finale and did incredible work. We managed to control the entire stage by letting the breakaways take the bonus seconds and we kept all our options open for the finish where, in terms of how I was feeling, I was really strong and managed to secure another victory" Silva explained, emphasizing the fundamental role played by his teammates, to whom the twenty-four-year-old from Maldonado, without hesitation, wanted to dedicate his sixth prominent victory.

"This victory is for them, who have placed 100% trust in me throughout this race, but of course also for my family who, even though it's the middle of the night in my country, I believe are following what I'm doing in this race from Uruguay right now" said the former Caja Rural rider, ready to stay vigilant for the final stage which, tomorrow, will take the peloton to Sanya.

"Obviously tomorrow, being the last day, we expect someone to attack but, as we saw today, we have a very strong team. We have a ten-second advantage and I believe this margin can work in our favor".

Of the same opinion was Alessandro Fancellu after today's finish, who in the final three kilometers uphill set the race on fire in an attempt to make a difference and gain ground in the general classification.

"Tomorrow something will definitely happen because here large breakaways go out every day. Today too the initial section was flat as a billiard table and at some point there were 20 riders up front, so certainly tomorrow there will be people who will try. Maybe we'll come up with something to take the bonus seconds at the intermediate sprints but we'll see when the time comes" the 2000-born rider from MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort told us, who, although the final outcome wasn't what was desired, performed excellently in the stage finale.

"We had a very specific tactic in mind this morning, namely attacking the final climb at the front with a proper team lead-out and hoping in this way to create some gaps. We executed the plan perfectly with Budzinski doing the first 500 meters of the climb at full speed before I launched my attack and tried to create as much selection as possible" Fancellu explained, forced to give it his all and open up well before the final meters to try to distance his direct rivals as much as possible.

"Having a 12-second gap in the general classification from first place, I had to try to open gaps rather than wait here because, without creating gaps, even winning the stage wouldn't have been easy to move up positions in the classification. Certainly, if there hadn't been the bonus seconds from previous days affecting things and we had all been at the same time, I could have played my cards a bit better, maybe waiting for the last part of the climb. In the condition I was in, however, I couldn't wait for the final part of the climb risking finding myself battling it out at the top with 15 riders" the Lombard rider pointed out, nonetheless quite satisfied with the responses that he and the team managed to give.

"We tried to risk everything and, in the end, we can be happy because we raced well, we gave it our all and we did what we had to do. In the finale there were two or three stronger men but that's okay" concluded calmly the third-place finisher of today's stage.