cycling: Tour de France stage #4: Marcel Kittel wins by a hair's breadth

Cycling: After yesterday's photo finish, it shouldn't be any less close today. The longest stage of this year's Tour de France ended again with a thrilling final sprint. Two days before the EM semi-final in football between France and Germany, the duel in the Tour de France was today Marcel Kittel (Etixx-Quick Step) against Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie). Peter Sagan again confidently defended his yellow jersey in third place.

Bora-Argon 18 again represented in the escape group

The fourth stage of the 2016 Tour de France took the riders 237,5 km, making it the longest distance ridden that year. From Saumur to Limoges, the first foothills of the Massif Central also had to be overcome. However, the stage was rightly classified as a flat stage. Only on the last 50 km should the profile get a bit wavy, with the last 500 m of the day being uphill. So before the race it was questionable whether it should be a day for pure sprinters or rather for punchers like the German John Degenkolb. Unlike yesterday, several riders pulled away from the peloton today. The day's breakaway consisted of Markel Irizar (Trek-Segafredo), Alexis Gougeard (Ag2r), Oliver Naesen (IAM) and Germany's Andreas Schillinger (Bora-Argon 18). For the first time this year, no driver from the French team Fortuneo-Vital Concept was represented at the front. The peloton gave the quartet a lead of around six minutes and then kept it constant. The tailwind also prevented a slow pace like yesterday.

Another photo finish – Marcel Kittel wins

66 km before the finish, there was an intermediate sprint, which the breakaway group could of course easily take with them. The battle for fifth place in the peloton was not quite as casual, but not with the last ounce of strength either. Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) prevailed in front of Marcel Kittel (Etixx-Quick Step), Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) and André Greipel (Lotto Soudal). The advantage of the escapees fell to around two minutes, so that it was already clear at this point that today's escape would not be crowned with success. As usual, the escapees were allowed to continue until a few kilometers from the finish, but there were no longer any doubts about a mass sprint. Due to the hilly finale, the sprinter teams and the teams of the classification riders already stretched themselves to the front of the field with 10-15 km before the finish and the pace was kept constantly high. Especially Katusha for Alexander Kristoff and Lotto Soudal for André Greipel pushed the pace in the last kilometers. In the end, the duel was Kittel versus Coquard. While the German could be seen in the wind early on, Couqard got past everyone on the left flank very late – except Marcel Kittel. Peter Sagan not only confidently defended his yellow jersey, but also regained the lead in the battle for the green jersey.

Tour de France Stage #4 – The day's result

Tour de France Stage #4 – The General Classification