Tour de San Luis: Daniel Diaz adds to race lead on Stage 4 summit finish

Argentinean Daniel Diaz extended his lead in the Tour de San Luis Thursday by winning the second summit finish of his home tour’s 2015 edition. Diaz won the first mountain stage Tuesday to grab the race lead. The Funvic-Sao Jose dos Campos rider and 2013 winner attacked defending champion Nairo Quintana (Colombia/Movistar) and other rivals on the Alto El Amago climb and stayed away on the flat 2-km run to the finish.

Four riders escaped to build up a maximum lead of seven minutes, but it deteriorated to two minutes by the descent of the Cat. 3 climb leading to Alto El Amago. Quintana was the one who dictated the pace in the select group as it picked up the fugitive and he twice tried to accelerate away, but Diaz bolted with 2 km remaining in the climb. Second place on the day went to Diaz’s Brazilian teammate Alex Dinez, who sits third on GC behind Colombian Rodolfo Torres (Colombia-Coldportes). Dinez placed third in 2013 race.

Quintana is fourth, 1:23 in arrears with Friday’s bowl-profile 17.4-km time trial and Saturday’s last summit finish as the final days to make up time.

Canadians Antoine Duchesne (Europcar) and Hugo Houle (Ag2r) finished in a bunch 14-minutes back of Diaz. Houle bounced down to 77th on GC and Duchesne rose slightly to 106th.