peloton, paced by his team Caisse d'Epargne, caught the morning's breakaway, Valverde himself attacked at the foot of the day's last climb, and the group of nine GC contenders who were able to hold his wheel contested the finish together. Stage 4 21 May 2009 – La Pobla de Lillet to Vallnord Sector Pal (Andorra), 175.7 km This stage was undulating at first, and then became mountainous. The Coll del Port (a pass in Catalonia, not to be confused with the pass in France with a very similar name) was visited, and the finish into Andorra was an outside categorization climb, which began 10 kilometers from the finish line. It has been called the 2009 Volta's queen stage. This stage was conquered by a member of the morning's breakaway, Julián Sánchez. Sánchez and seven others who came clear of the peloton early on in the stage. While the others were absorbed before the Vallnord climb, Sánchez still had a 90-second lead at its foot and managed to stay away just long enough, giving victory in the queen stage of this UCI ProTour event to a non-ProTour team. The GC favorites who had otherwise dominated on the climb were within a kilometer of Sánchez at the finish, with Dan Martin coming the closest to catching him, for second on the stage and a slight time again against race leader Alejandro Valverde. Martin moved from sixth to second in the GC after the stage. As the stages that follow this one are all seen as potentially sprinters' stages, Valverde's team made it clear after this stage that they would work with the teams of the sprinters to ensure mass finishes the rest of the way and protect his 15-second lead over Martin. Stage 5 22 May 2009 – La Seu d'Urgell to Torredembarra, 201.3 km A fair amount of descending faced the riders in this stage, being that it began at 670 meters in elevation and ended near sea level. Most of the descending took place right before the finish line. A four-man breakaway came clear of the peloton within the first 10 km of the stage. Their maximum advantage was 4' 30", with Steven Cozza attacking and staying out front for a short while as the peloton absorbed his three breakaway mates. Cozza was also eventually caught, and the finish was contested in a mass sprint, won by Katusha's Nikolay Trusov.