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Published on Monday, 08 July 2019 20:00

TDF 2019 Stage 4

Reims - Nancy

Tues 9th July, 215kms 

We leave the Champagne region and head to Nancy on a stage that if it ends in anything other than a sprint finish it'll be a major surprise. A 1.5km flat and straight run to the finish line will see the sprinters' teams go head-to-head for supremacy.

There was a very similar stage to this one in the 2014 edition of the Tour, from Epernay to Nancy, it was 20kms longer and had three tough lumps in the last 30kms that saw only the toughest sprinters fight out the finish, with Matteo Trentin besting Peter Sagan, with Tony Gallopin, Tom Dumoulin and Simon Gerrans next over the line. This finish isn't quite as hard a finish as that one was, but that's worth bearing in mind.  

Stage 3 Review

Well that was fun, wasn't it! Alaphilippe showing once again why he is the best puncheur/classics rider in the peloton right now, by tearing up the expected script that he would wait and outsprint them all on the final hill, instead, attacking on the Mutigny 15kms out, taking the 6" bonus and then soloing to the finish to win. Not only did he win, he won by enough time to take the yellow jersey, he now leads Wout Van Aert by 20", with Steven Kruijswijk the first of the GC men just 5" further back 

It was an exciting last 40kms or so like we expected, with Tim Wellens kicking things off by attacking out of the break of the day and leading in to the Mutigny with an advantage of over a minute. But he punctured at the bottom and even though he grinded his way to the top and took the 8" and KOM pts, Alaphilippe was literally on his shoulder as he crossed the line. 

Woods, Landa, Lutsenko and Schachmann went in pursuit of Alaphilippe, but they were quickly swallowed up by what was left of the peloton as they charged towards the final hill in Epernay. Van Avermaet got a good lead in and fought all the way up the hill to take 4th, but more importantly for us, to beat Wout by 5 places and land the odds-against.

Michael Matthews sprinted superbly well up the hill though to take 2nd, you have to wonder would he have outsprinted Alaphilippe though had they come to the final hill together.. I think not, I think Alap would have still jumped away from them all and won that way instead! 

Jasper Stuyven was a big surprise in 3rd, it was a very strong sprint by him, Peter Sagan could only manage 5th place, with Trentin and Colbrelli behind him. Pinot and Bernal stole 5" in a split from the rest of the GC men, but all of the main GC men finished together, 31" behind Alaphilippe. Mike Teunissen was in trouble quite a way from home though and eventually cracked on the Mutigny, he came home almost 5 minutes down in the end and lost yellow. 

Annoyingly, Adam Yates lost to Nibali by TWO places, otherwise we'd have had that double up too as Kruikswijk easily beat Porte. Colbrelli easily beat Bettiol, all the talk about him winning today was very misplaced, he finished almost 14 mins down, but Sagan lost to Matthews to blow that one. Still, it was a winning day finally, hopefully we can carry on tomorrow. Alaphilippe to win two stages or more is half way there too. 

The Route

Not a lot to say about this stage's route, they head south-east from Reims for 60 or so kilometres, then west for 85kms or so, passing over the Cat 4 Cote de Rosieres after 121kms. Then carry on heading south-east again for 45kms, turn left and head north-east for the last 18kms or so, passing over another Cat 4 climb with 15kms to go.

The Cote de Maron is 3.2kms at 5%, and will be ridden at a furious pace by teams trying to shed the weaker sprinters, but it's not too difficult and most of them should make it over the top in the peloton, or not too far off for it to be retreiveable. The road descends gently for about 3kms before becoming a bit steeper for the next 3kms, then is a gentle descent for the last 9kms, with the last kilometre more or less flat.  

There are some tricky bends to negotiate inside the last 5kms though, with 3.5kms to go there's almost a u-turn left bend around a roundabout, positioning will be vital coming in to this, you and your leadout will need to be well positioned to avoid any trouble.

Then they dip under the river with 2.7kms to go and just after 2kms to go go around another rounadbout and almost immediately swing a hard left with 1700m to go. This could be where the stage is won or lost, through those two bends, so expect a massive battle to be front of the pack hitting the straight with 1500m left. 

The weather is forecast to be good, but there is a north-easterly wind of around 12-13mph that will be a cross tail-wind for most of the way, but sometimes a cross head-wind, and a head-wind for the finishing straight. 

The Contenders:

Wide open spaces, a cross-wind for most of the day, could we see a lot more action on this stage than it looks like it might have on paper? We might see the likes of DQS and Bora put the hammer down at times if there looks like there could be opportunities to force echelons and split the pack, so everyone will need to stay vigilant tomorrow. 

We've not really had a lot of clues in the first three stages as to who is hot and who's not in the sprints, as they have been two tough uphill sprints and a TTT. Nevertheless Peter Sagan has shown that he has great legs, not only almost winning stage one and finishing 5th today on a finish that would have been right on the limit of his abilities, but also winning intermediate sprints too. 

Will the hill 15kms from the finish catch any guys out? It's possible, maybe some sprinters might be under pressure, the pace is going to be so fast at this point, Bora, Bahrain and Sunweb will be doing their utmost to shed some, but to be fair the sprinters that are here at the Tour are pretty decent over small hills like this, it's not as hard as what they faced today. It's the positioning and leadout inside the last 4kms, and particularly that last 1.7kms or so, the roundabout and final bend will probably decide the winner. 

Deceunick came very close (for a while) to winning the TTT, they lost out to Ineos by just 0.82", desperately close. It shows though that they are in superb form and have some huge engines in that team. It also showed that Elia Viviani is very strong, he finished with the squad instead of getting dropped or deliberately backing off, he was pulling for the team that day, knowing they would repay him in stages like this. He was also pulling for Alap today, finally giving way on the penultimate climb, but helped set things up for Alap's stage win. 

He didn't do great in the sprint on Saturday, but that was just a bit too tough for him, I didn't expect him to be involved, but I was actually a bit surprised he got that close. If Jumbo are maybe looking after SK and Groenewegen isn't feeling 100% tomorrow, they might back off a little out of the sprint chaos and DQS might take over and boss the last 1500m. With Lampaert taking a huge turn coming out of that bend, then Richeze and Morkov taking over inside the last kilometre and Viv finishing it off.. sounds textbook DQS, right? They'll be buzzing after that win today and they are a team that often goes on winning rolls once they start winning. 

As I said, I wonder what Jumbo's tactics will be now they have lost the yellow jersey? They have got off to a great start with SK like I hoped they might, he has a nice lead already on some of his rivals, so they won't want anything silly to happen now.  They will probably decide that a stage win with Dylan is more important and they will probably get most of the team to work for him in the final kilometres. 

The team should come first, a stage win for one of the fastest sprinters in the race should come first, but how is Dylan Groenewegen's body after his crash on Saturday? He took quite a while to get up, sitting on the road like he was a bit dazed and hurt. He also got well dropped in the TTT Sunday, but that was possibly always going to happen and maybe team orders too to take it easy and recover. If he isn't 100% then he might struggle to get top power here to take the win. 

Lotto Soudal looked great coming in to the final hill with about 3kms to go on Saturday, but then disappeared and as the sprint started Caleb Ewan was way too far out of position and had to come past about 10 people. He did though come past almost all of them, and if he hadn't been blocked when in full sprint mode with about 150m to go he might have been closer to Sagan and Teunissen. 

Uphill sprints after a tough day seem to be his strongest hand though, and although there is that hill 15kms from the finish, I don't think you could really call this one a tough day.. Sure, Lotto might try to hammer it on the climb to help strip the pack down a bit, but they probably won't drop most of his rivals, and they can't go too hard as he was one of the first dropped on the hills today.

Then it will come down to a flat sprint to the line and he will need them to do a good leadout like they did in the Giro, take him to the front with 200m to go and let him go. His aero sprinting position will be a slight advantage in to the headwind on the finishing straight. He should be close. 

Of course Peter Sagan will be close, he's always involved in sprint finishes, but I think he suffered quite a bit today and it could have taken a lot out of him to stay in contention, ultimately for nothing, while all the other sprinters more or less were taking it easy back in the grupetto. I think Sagan will find a few of these guys too fast for him tomorrow. 

Sonny Colbrelli seems to be sprinting well and has lots of power in the legs, he was up there again today taking 7th place after 5th place on Saturday. He did win a flat sprint in stage 4 of the Tour of Oman earlier in the year and was 2nd in stage 6 behind Nizzolo, so he can do alright on the flat too. This is a different level to Oman though and I think he'll be 4th to 9th again. One for the in-play bet with Bet365.

Giacomo Nizzolo won that final stage in Oman as I said, and has been sprinting pretty well this year, he seems to have gotten some of his mojo back. He also won a stage in the Tour of Slovenia and finished 5th in two stages of the Giro, as well as 8th and 9th, before he had to retire. He could have a decent leadout too, they were very visible at the front on stage 2, EBH, Valgren, Van Rensberg and Lars Bak will give it everything to give him a shot, and I've a feeling he might get close again, he could be a dark horse for a podium place at 22/1. 

And I think the winner comes from that lot above, Alexander Kristoff, Christophe Laporte, Matteo Trentin and André Greipel will be battling it out for the remaining top 10 places. Watch out also for Jasper Stuyven, he did incredibly well today to sprint to 3rd at 100/1, he could be Trek's sprinter again tomorrow and might go close. 

But I'm counting on the DQS boys to make it two in a row and deliver Viviani with a perfect leadout, and he'll do the rest.. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on Elia Viviani at 5/2 on Betfair

0.5pts e/w on Giacomo Nizzolo at 22/1 with various. 

Matchbets

Nizzolo to beat Kristoff - 2pts at 4/6

Colbrelli to beat Matthews - 2pts at 5/6

Ewan to beat Sagan - 2pts at evens