Tour de France LIVE stage four: Fernando Gaviria wins sprint photo finish from Peter Sagan and Andre Greipel
The peloton returns to the road as one for a 195km route from La Baule to Sarzeau, via a jaunt into the heart of Brittany, setup for the sprinters
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Stage four offers another chance for sprinters like Mark Cavendish, Fernando Gaviria and Peter Sagan to shine while the general classification contenders like Chris Froome, Richie Porte and the rest will just be hoping to keep out of harm's way following the choas of the opening two stages.
After yesterday's stage-three team time trial, Greg van Avermaet is the man in the yellow jersey, the BMC rider who will aim to defend that status for as long as possible through the coming days, but will face plenty of challenges no doubt, not least from Team Sky and Geraint Thomas, their foremost rider in the overall standings.
Although today's 195km route from La Baule to Sarzeau via a jaunt into the heart of picturesque Brittany is a relatively flat one, the stage finishes on a slight uphill drag for around 2km which could take out the short-burst sprinters and will favour the riders who can sustain power for longer, like Michael Matthews and perhaps Marcel Kittel. Follow all the action with our live blog below:
Stage four profile
Route map
Prediction
There are all sort of riders who could win this type of stage, but the uphill drag to the finish makes us think Michael Matthews can pull off something special.
Odds
Fernando Gaviria 7/4
Dylan Groenewegen 4/1
Marcel Kittel 4/1
Peter Sagan 11/2
Arnaud Demare 15/2
How to watch on TV
Stage four will be shown live on ITV4 from 12pm, and on Eurosport from 11.45am.
The man trying to hold on to yellow today, BMC's Greg van Avermaet:
126km to go
The breakaway of Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Wanty), Jérôme Cousin (Direct Energie), Dimitri Claeys (Cofidis) and Anthony Perez (Cofidis) now have a lead of 6min 48sec on the chasing pack, which is being led by Patrick Bevan (BMC).
91km to go
Guillaume van Keirsbulck (Wanty) wins the intermediate sprint at Derval! He pips Dimitri Claeys, Anthony Perez and Jerome Cousin to the post.
The gap between the breakaway group and the peloton is now down to just 2 minutes 47 seconds. Yellow jersey holder Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) sits at the front of the chasing pack, alongside team-mate Tejay van Garderen.
70km to go
That gap to the leaders has been reduced right down to around two minutes, and for this quartet of Belgian and French riders – do they have somewhere to be? – it seems like their hopes of sustaining this break until the end are dwindling.
60km to go
The gap is reduced now to within 1 min 30 sec for the first time since the very beginning of this stage. The sprint teams are jostling for position here, with Dimension Data shuffling closer to the front – after a frustrating first couple of days they are determined to give Mark Cavendish the chance to compete on this long straight finish.
This tweet is a little bit old now, about 30 mins, but gives a really interesting insight into how the workload has been split across the various teams to reel in the breakaway.
50km to go
It's fair to say this has not been a thriller. Still four riders – Guillaume van Keirsbulck (Wanty), Dimitri Claeys and Anthony Perez (Cofidis) and Jerome Cousin (Direct Energie) – out in front around a minute and a half ahead of the main bunch.
A crash!
A minor one, thankfully, but at least there's something of note for me to report. Jacob Fuglsang (Astana) is one of those involved, and he's among about 20 riders who seem to have been held up. One or two riders went into the shallow grass ditch off the side of the road but there doesn't seem to have been any major injuries. The peloton will slow down, out of the goodness of their hearts, to allow those affected to rejoin the pack.
Ag2r's Tony Gallopin has just been whacked by his team car, more specifically the door which swung open as one of his mechanics jumped out to hand him a new rear tyre. He wasn't seriously injured, but looked rather miffed.
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