Nairo Quintana attacks and takes Tirreno-Adriatico lead

Nairo Quintana took over the lead after beating all of his rivals on the Queen Stage of the Italian race between the two seas

The 187km route of Stage 4, the Queen stage culminated in a tough climb up the Terminillo, a perfect opportunity for the GC contenders .

Davide Ballerini (Androni Giocattoli), Mirco Maestri (Bardiani CSF), Alan Marangoni (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Matvei Mamykin (Katusha-Alpecin), Marko Kump (UAE Team Emirates) and Romain Gioux (Team Novo Nordisk) created the day's breakaway which at ot's height had over 10 minutes lead on the Peloton.

The peloton injected some pace ahead of the final climb, and only Ballerini was out front before he reached the foot of the final climb of Terminillo with around 15 km to go.

Katusha's Mamykin had crashed spectacularly but was ok to continue to finish the stage.

Ballerini was caught with 13 kilometers to go by a small group including former world champion Kwiatkowski, Kreuziger, Spilak, Maurits Lammertink and Castroviejo.

Several attacks were made of the front of the Peloton, but to no avail. Then Quintana attacked and only Adam Yates, Geraint Thomas and Rigoberto Iran managed to bridge across.

Spilak, who was on his own at thr front of the race, but the Movistar rider went straight past with just a few kilometers to go. Shortly after, he launched another attack to drop make sure he dropped the chasing group including Thomas and Yates.

Quintana won the stage with Thomas trailing 17 seconds behind, with Yates third just ahead of Uran.

The stage victory was just enough for Quintana to take the blue leader's jersey from BMC's Rohan Dennis.

2017 Tirreno-Adriatico Stage 4 Top 10 Results

1 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team 5:27:22 
2 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:18 
3 Adam Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott 0:00:24 
4 Rigoberto Uran (Col) Cannondale-Drapac   
5 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha-Alpecin 0:00:29 
6 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:00:41 
7 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale   
8 Mikel Landa (Spa) Team Sky   
9 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ 0:00:46 
10 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 0:00:51 

2017 Tirreno-Adriatico Overall after Stage 4

1 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team 16:34:46 
2 Adam Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott 0:00:33 
3 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ 0:00:56 
4 Jonathan Castroviejo (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:01 
5 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:01:06 
6 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:01:19 
7 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team LottoNl-Jumbo   
8 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 0:01:23 
9 Daniel Moreno (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:27 
10 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:29

VIDEO: 2017 Tirreno-Adriatico Final Kilometers