2018 Tour de France Stage 4 Results & Recap
Stage 4 of the 2018 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Gaviria doubles at his first Tour de France\nBy Clara Beard
Colombian sensation Fernando Gaviria once again proved his exceptional form on stage 4 of the Tour de France, winning the bunch gallop by several inches ahead of Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and André Greipel in the finishing city of Sarzeau.
Gaviria sealed the deal after a committed Quick Step Floors lead out train, led by Max Richeze, dodged a late crash and delivered the 23-year-old to the line. Andre Griepel just missed out on second place after a late charge from Sagan.
"It was a very difficult victory," Gaviria said. "We didn't have any help to control the breakaway today so it was really difficult, but we really wanted to win today and the team did an incredible job and we're really happy. I'd like to thank all of my teammates for all of their hard work, and we're now looking forward to the next few days.
Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team) safely retained the yellow jersey for yet another day, finishing 16th on the stage. However his finish didn’t come without some tension.
“Today’s stage was a lot of stress, but it ended well,” Van Avermaet said. “My teammates spent the whole day working to protect Richie Porte and me. In addition, there were some sections of the race where there wasn’t a lot of space on the road, so I wanted to be in the front as much as possible. The crashes today weren’t due to the parcours but to the sport directors who all say the same thing in the ear piece. That’s the biggest problem. There’s too much pressure put on the riders. About tomorrow stage, Richie Porte knows did a recon in May along with some other teammates, so he probably knows the route better than me. It is great to have the yellow jersey and will try to keep it for as long as possible.”
After losing two riders on stage 2 of the tour, the 192 km flat and fast stage started with 174 riders in La Baule. Immediately following the official start, JĂ©rĂ´me Cousin (Direct Energie), Guillaume van Keirsbulck (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Dimitri Claeys and Anthony Perez (Cofidis) broke away from the peloton, who were quite happy to let them up the road.
The quartet opened up a gap that almost reached eight minutes by mid-stage, but after the sprinters teams moved up to the front to take over the pace-making from BMC that lead was shattered.
It was down to a minute in the last 10 kilometres, and for a while it looked like there was a glimmer of hope the breakaway could make it to the end. But it wasn’t to be, the escapees were caught with just 1 kilometre to go and the sprinters made it their day to shine in Sarzeau.
Get our full coverage of the Tour de France and every race we cover with our mobile app! The apps have over 100 additional exclusive features, including our award-winning Time Machine feature that lets you pause/rewind/replay the entire app to sync with delayed race video, integrated Fantasy Cycling, push notifications, an integrated news feed, live GPS tracking, world-class commentary, and our animated interactive maps and profiles.
