2014 Tour de France Stage Four Report

Stage 4 Le Touquet-Paris-Plage - Lille Metropole 163.5km

The big news at the start of the day, was that 2010 Tour winner Andy Schleck of Trek had abandoned due to ligament damage. As the race entered France, a Frenchman was one half of the days' break; the Frenchman being Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) and Luis Maté (Cofidis) was the other escapee. Whilst in the peloton, two of the favourites Bauke Mollema (Belkin) and Chris Froome (Sky) were involved in a minor crash. Froome came off the worst and had to visit the medical car. The lead of the breakaway hovered around the two minute mark. Luis Mate took the solo point up the Cote de Campagnette. Thomas Voeckler beat Mate to take 20 points at the sprint point. It was on the top of a small hill and Sagan beat Coquard for 3rd place to increase his lead in that competition. There was a split in the Peloton and a group of around 30 riders including Joaquim Rodriguez and Kwiatkowski were a minute down on the peloton with 60km to go. The gap was quickly shortened to only 25 seconds. After a puncture, Luis Mate was caught by the peloton with 54km to go. With 50km to go, the dropped group caught back on the back of the peloton. Just after he caught back on, Niki Terpstra suffered a mundane crash, which put him over a minute back but he caught back on. Thomas Voeckler took the lone King of the Mountain point up Mont Noir which takes his tally of points up to 3 and that takes him to 5th place, he also improved his lead from 35 seconds to 1 minute 45, within 10km. With 30km left, Bert de Clerq and Greg Henderson suffered a fall on a roundabout. Greg Henderson had to abandon the race as he had damaged his knee, reducing the number of riders to 194. With 16km to go Thomas Voeckler was finally caught by the Peloton. Whilst at the other end of the race, Peter Sagan had a mechanical and had to catch back on. Thomas Voeckler won the Combativity Award. Through the streets of Lille, there were two distinct trains, of Omega Pharma - Quick-Step and Giant-Shimano. After an early lead out for Alexander Kristoff, there was about seven riders who were incredibly close on the line, but after some replays we can see that Marcel Kittel won the stage.

Stage Four Result:

1.	GERKITTEL Marcel	101	TEAM GIANT-SHIMANO	03h 36' 39''
2.	NORKRISTOFF Alexander	23	TEAM KATUSHA	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''
3.	FRADEMARE Arnaud	121	FDJ.FR	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''
4.	SVKSAGAN Peter	51	CANNONDALE	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''
5.	FRACOQUARD Bryan	153	TEAM EUROPCAR	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''
6.	GERGREIPEL André	135	LOTTO-BELISOL	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''
7.	AUSRENSHAW Mark	77	OMEGA PHARMA-QUICK STEP	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''
8.	NEDVAN POPPEL Danny	167	TREK FACTORY RACING	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''
9.	ITACIMOLAI Davide	112	LAMPRE - MERIDA	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''
10.	ITAOSS Daniel	145	BMC RACING TEAM	03h 36' 39''	+ 00' 00''

More Detailed Results: Click Here