Ale-Jet flies once more and is re-crowned king of the sprinters in Champagne capital
Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-Farnese Vini) won the fourth stage of the Tour de France between Cambrai and Reims, the capital of the Champagne region. He outsprinted the rest of the peloton to take his second stage of this year’s race. The Italian beat New Zealander Julian Dean (Garmin-Transitions) into second and Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) into second and third at the end of the shortest stage of the race.
After the chaos and carnage of the two preceding stages, normality returned to the Tour de France once more as a stage-long breakaway escaped, defying the teams of the sprinters to pull it back in time.
“Today I proved I could win in all circumstances,” said Petacchi afterwards, referring to his victory on stage 1, which saw so many of his rivals come down in a series of crashes. “I’ve heard some comments more or less saying that the victory in Brussels was that of an ’old man’, but this time I have received no advantage because of crashes of my rivals.”
“I want to thank my team because it is through them that I participate again in races at this level,” he continued. “Now, with two wins, I could very well go home and consider that my job is finished. Two wins on the Tour de France is already exceptional. Besides, after the first, I was talking with Oscar Freire and he told me that I could already taste my Tour, that everything else is a bonus. But I do not quite see things this way. I’m here to win stages, and I’ll keep trying to do just that.”
After just 1.5km an attack from Dimitri Champion (AG2R-La Mondiale) was joined by Francis De Greef (OmegaPharma-Lotto), Nicolas Vogondy (Bbox Bouyges Telecom), Inaki Isasi (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Iban Mayoz (Footon-Servetto). The best-placed rider in the group was Isasi, 3’46” behind race leader Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank), he was briefly race leader on the road as the lead rose to 3’50” after 25km. HTC-Columbia put Kanstantin Sivtsov on the front of the peloton at this point though, and quickly reduced it to around 2 minutes.
This was how it was to remain for some time as Sivtsov was joined by single riders from the other sprinters’ teams, and the five riders ahead continued to share the workload. With a breeze blowing on the race the entire RadioShack team of Lance Armstrong positioned itself right at the front of the peloton to make sure the seven-time winner didn’t get caught behind any splits that might occur.
With the wind mostly on the riders’ tails though, no splits occurred.
Into the final 50km the breakaway quintet’s lead was reduced to just 1 minute; but as the Cervélo TestTeam of yesterday’s stage winner Thor Hushovd massed forward this was quickly halved. HTC-Columbia sent more riders forward for the benefit of Mark Cavendish, and Petacchi sent a number of Lampre riders to the front, and so the breakaway looked to be doomed.
With 20km to go the gap to the leaders stood at 34 seconds; this was reduced to 22 seconds at 15km, then 15 seconds at 10km. A combination of the tailwind, a not entirely coherent chase by a number of different teams, the succession of roundabouts in the closing kilometres, and the desire of the peloton to not make the catch too soon saw the breakaway continue to dangle tantalisingly just ahead.
At 5km the lead was just a handful of seconds and De Greef, seeing the catch as inevitable, sat up and allowed himself to drift back to the peloton. The other four continued with their efforts though, but were captured with 3.1km to go.
HTC-Columbia now had control of the peloton as it entered the city, but Lampre-Farnese Vini tried unsuccessfully to take over on the other side of the road. Into the final few hundred metres Cavendish was safely tucked in on the wheel of his lead out man Mark Renshaw; most of the other big name sprinters, including Hushovd, Robbie McEwen (Katusha) and Oscar Freire (Rabobank) were jostling for position behind the Manxman, waiting for him to unleash his sprint.
Unfortunately for most of the sprinters though, Cavendish’s sprint never appeared. Renshaw pulled over in the same well-rehearsed fashion that saw Cavendish take six stages in last year’s Tour but Cavendish faltered, before sitting up entirely.
Just at that moment Petacchi launched his sprint, while most of the others were having to accelerate again around the slowing Cavendish. Dean came closest to overhauling the Italian, but Ale-Jet had done enough to take his second convincing victory of the Tour so far.
Cancellara and the rest of the overall contenders finished together in the peloton and so there are no changes to the yellow jersey classification.
Result stage 4
1. Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini
2. Julian Dean (NZl) Garmin-Transitions
3. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Team Sky
4. Robbie McEwen (Aus) Team Katusha
5. Robbie Hunter (RSA) Garmin-Transtitions
6. Sébastien Turgot (Fra) Bbox Bouyges Telecom
7. Jose Rosas (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne
8. Daniel Oss (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo
9. Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervélo TestTeam
10. Oscar Freire (Spa) Rabobank
Standings after stage 4
1. Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank
2. Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky @ 23s
3. Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team @ 39s
4. Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Garmin-Transitions @ 46s
5. Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Quick Step @ 1’01”