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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Michael Butler

Tour de France 2024: Pogacar powers back into yellow with stage four victory – as it happened

Tadej Pogacar Jonas Vingegaard Juan Ayuso Oier Lazkano Primoz Roglic David Gaudu Remco Evenepoel Remco Evenepoel Soudal Tour de France Richard Carapaz
Tadej Pogacar crosses the line to take the stage win.
Tadej Pogacar crosses the line to take the stage win. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images

That’s me done for the day. Thanks for reading and for your emails. Stage five, the time trail, takes place tomorrow! Bye!

Stage five, Wednesday 3 July: Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Saint-Vulbas, 177.5km

A run out of the Alps through Chambéry, home of the Decathlon-Ag2R team since its foundation in 1992. This should be a second sprint stage, and Decathlon will be fired up to launch their Irish sprinter Sam Bennett, set to return to the Tour for the first time since 2020. He’s won four sprints this year but whether he has the legs of last year’s points winner, Jasper Philipsen, remains to be seen.

Jeremy Whittle's stage four report

This was Pogacar’s descent. He spoke in his post-stage interview about spending a lot of time training in this specific area of France, and it shows. Pogacar hit a top speed of 89.2 km/h, whereas Vingegaard only managed 84.6 km/h.

Updated

With so much climbing, and with so much of that at a very high altitude, this would have been a perfect stage for the peak Egan Bernal (2019-2021). But the Colombian has never really recovered from his horrific crash in 2022. A real shame, as he was a unique GC rider, with very different strengths to Pogacar and Vingegaard.

But then, Bernal has spoken about how he nearly lost his life in that crash. So perhaps we should just be grateful that he is here and racing.

Pogacar speaks!

I’m super happy. This was the plan and we executed it really well. It was a dream stage. It’s incredible. We wanted to hit hard today. I know this stage really well. I’ve been training here a lot. It was like a home stage. Bonus seconds on the top as well. I had confidence and good legs.

There was a lot of headwind on the climb. I didn’t want to go too early because of that, waiting for the last few hundred metres. I was surprised to see wet road on the few hundred metres of the descent, was a bit scary, but I was OK.

Provisional GC standings, including those bonuses

1. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
2. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) +45”
3. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +50”
4. Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) +1’10”
5. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +1’14”
6. Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +1’16”
7. Mikel Landa (Soudal-Quick Step) +1’32”
8. Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +1’32”

Richard Carapaz crosses the line in yellow, over five minutes behind Pogacar …

Provisional stage four finishes

1. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
2. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) +35”
3. Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates)
4. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)
5. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike)

Updated

Fair play to Evenepoel, who caught up that trailing group after a pretty disappointing descent and won the sprint finish ahead of Ayuso, Roglic, Vingegaard and Rodríguez.

Updated

Vingegaard finishes 37 seconds back! That is some gap, and doesn’t count the bonus seconds that Pogacar earned at the top of the Galibier. We’ll have the official timings shortly.

Tadej Pogacar wins stage four! The Slovenian also takes the yellow jersey!

His 12th stage win in the Tour! He raises his arms aloft before beating his chest in celebration!

Updated

1km to go: Barring a crash, this is Pogacar’s stage. The Slovenian rolls into Valloire, where the crowds line the road, bashing the hoardings. What a day for UAE!

3km to go: No let up from Pogacar! As I suggested earlier, he smells blood here and is absolutely flying down the mountain, 35 seconds ahead of Vingegaard, Roglic, Rodríguez and Ayuso.

5km to go: Both a sublime descent by Pogacar, and a rather pedestrian one from Vingegaard. I wonder how much his crash in April on a descent affected him here?

6km to go: Vingegaard is now 30 seconds back! Roglic, Carlos Rodríguez and UAE’s Juan Ayuso are catching him and the four will ride down towards Valloire behind Pogacar.

10km to go: Evenepoel has lost three places on the descent. In the virtual GC standings the Belgian is in third behind Vingegaard and Pogacar but is losing valuable time.

12km to go: This is a very technical descent. Pogacar is stretching his lead over Vingegaard, now more than 15 seconds!

15km to go: Tom Holdsworth has pointed out one of my typos: ‘Pogacar are in a cracking position at the front’, as per my entry at 3.27pm BST.

“Love the irony in your (very rare) mis-types,” he emails. Tom Holdsworth. “It must feel like there are two of them”.

It does! Pogacar has four legs, don’t you know?!

16km to go: The rest of that breakaway group, including Evenepoel (who is not the best descender), are now 25 seconds behind Pogacar. Carapaz, in yellow, is now four minutes back. There is a lot of damage being done in the GC standings today.

17km to go: Now, the descent to Valloire. Both Pogacar and Vingegaard will be going hell for leather down the Galibier, without a backwards glance. Vingegaard trails Pogacar by about nine seconds.

Pogacar is the first to scale Galibier!

18km to go: The duo speed up the mountain, but Pogacar attacks again and this time Vingegaard cannot respond! For the first time, there is a gap! Pogacar is the first to the top of the Galibier and he will take a bonus eight seconds as well as a huge moral victory.

Updated

Pogacar attacks!

19km to go: With just 800m to go, Pogacar goes! Remember there are bonus seconds at the top as well to fight for: eight, five and two. Vingegaard responds, staying one bike length back. And now there were two.

Updated

20km to go: I should mention that Roglic, Landa, and Evenepoel are all still in this 1-10-man leading group, but there are two UAE riders, Almeida and Ayuso, supporting Pogacar.

21km to go: Who will attack first? Just over 2km to go until the summit. Surely Pocagar will strike soon. Meanwhile, Carapaz is now a whopping two minutes back. His stint in yellow is definitely done.

22km to go: We are now well over 200m in altitude. Snow lines the road. The two great rivals, Pogacar and Vingegaard, are wheel to wheel. What a stage this is.

23km to go: Jorgenson is dropped, which means Vingegaard is all alone with the UAE riders, who must smell blood! This is a huge opportunity for UAE to expose the defending Tour de France champion. Pogacar is a brilliant position.

Richard Carapaz is dropped!

Wearing yellow, the Ecuadorian can’t keep pace with UAE and Visma–Lease a Bike. He’s now a good 50 seconds back. We will almost certainly have a new rider in yellow today, most likely to be Pogacar or Vingegaard.

24km to go: Fans are now lining the road on both sides, with the incline at 7%. Just 6km to go to the summit. This is the crucial part of the climb.

25km to go: Pogacar are in a cracking position at the front, surrounded by his UAE domestiques. Vingegaard and Matteo Jorgenson of Visma–Lease a Bike are also there. The peloton is lengthening now as the incline increases.

Updated

26 km to go: The peloton swallow the trio of Juul-Jensen, Johannessen or Gaudu. Only Lazkano remain out in front on the road.

Updated

27km to go: The peloton, now just 30 seconds back, can now see Juul-Jensen, Johannessen and Gaudu as they snake up the mountain. Lazkano remains our solo leader, about 10 seconds in front of that trio

28km to go: Lazkano attacks once more, surely for the final time. This time he is not followed by Juul-Jensen, Johannessen or Gaudu. We’re just over halfway into the Galibier climb, although the harshest sections are still to come.

29km to go: Lazkano attacks again, but is caught by the remaining three. Next, Johannessen goes, but it’s the same result. These four are expending so much energy. They will all surely be caught. If the breakaway had stayed at 17, perhaps there would have been an outside chance of staving off the peloton. But this is surely just a matter of time. The peloton is now less than a minute off the new breakaway group.

Updated

30km to go: Two more riders, Christopher Juul-Jensen and Tobias Johannessen, have joined Lazkano and Gaudu. The rest, including Barguil and Van der Poel are falling back towards the peloton.

31km to go: The breakaway group has completely splintered! Oier Lazkano attacked, which was a questionable move at best with this headwind, and David Gaudu has joined him. What was 17 riders is now two.

34km to go: And just like that, Politt is done at the front. He has emptied the tank for the peloton. Chapeau.

36km to go: Remarkably Politt is still leading the peleton, despite the rest of his UAE teammates (including Pogacar) being back in the main group, out of the wind. But the German has done a sensational job, almost single-handedly bringing the peloton back under two minutes from the breakaway group.

39km to go: “Are there any Americans who are in contention to win this year’s Tour De France?” asks Kurt Perleberg.

Honestly, it’s very unlikely. Matteo Jorgenson is probably the closest the US has got to a contender, but as part of the Visma–Lease a Bike team, his first objective will be to assist Jonas Vingegaard. Should something happen to the Dane, Jorgenson may get a chance to go for the GC, although he was lucky not to be more hurt in a fall in stage two.

Updated

41km to go: Here we go, then. The ascent to Galibier has officially begun. Watch out for those two black sections towards the summit. Absolutely brutal, especially with these headwinds.

Updated

43km to go: Nobody seems too keen to take up the front of the peloton. UAE’s Nils Politt had that honour for a while, and perhaps because of that, the breakaway group – who have been working well together in rotating the strike – have grown their lead again to around 2min45secs. The peloton can’t get too complacent!

Updated

46km to go: We’re in a bit of a holding pattern here as the riders wait to climb Galibier. Managing the altitude will be important: Galibier begins at 2,058 meters.

50km to go: The peloton are crawling along a brutal straight road against a furious headwind in the approach to Galibier. It’s surprising to say that despite the climbing today (and this headwind), the average speed is still just shy of 40mph/hr. Impressive.

52km to go: There are technically four groups of riders: the breakaway, the peleton (1min52secs behind leaders), a few riders that have dropped off (a further six second back), and a larger fourth group another 10 minutes further down the road. The latter group has 31 riders in, varying from Mark Cavendish to KOM leader Jonas Abrahamsen, although most are sprinters. Their only objective will be to stay within the time limit.

55km to go: Flanked by his UAE teammates, Pogacar leads the peloton, which remains around 1min54secs behind the lead group. Carapaz, the yellow jersey, is tucked into the main group, just a few metres behind the Slovenian.

60km to go: The breakaway is now less than two minutes ahead of the peloton. One would be forgiven for thinking that the lead pack has no hope of maintaining a lead come the end of this stage.

65km to go: So, just one ascent to go. The thing is, it’s Col du Galibier, one of the most fabled ascents in the history of the Tour. What’s notable, as per William Fotheringham in our stage-by-stage guide, is that it’s unprecedented for the Tour to go over a pass as high as the Galibier this early on. The ascent is generally kept until later in the race, as it was nine years ago. Galibier was meant to be the deciding factor on the penultimate stage in 2015, before a landslide scuppered that.

Updated

Five more KOM points for Williams at Col de Montgenèvre!

68km to go: Stevie Williams left it late, with Barguil trying to steal a march on his rivals with an early kick with 300m to go, but the Welshman has such a strong finish for a climber and timed that to perfection. Barguil had no answer, and Madouas came third there.

Updated

69km to go: Around 700m to go until the lead group reach the summit. Madouas will be desperate for these five points, but Williams is looking extremely relaxed at the front.

72km to go: Around halfway up the 8.3km ascent to Col de Montgenèvre and the lead group has once again stretched their lead to nearly three minutes.

78km to go: This is what those five points does for Williams’ challenge for the KOM race. To clarify, it is Abrahamsen, not Madouas, that leads the standings.

80km to go: After a quick descent from Sestrières, the leading pack now turn to Col de Montgenèvre, where five further KOM points are on offer. It’s also on the border between France and Italy, we will say goodbye to the latter in this year’s race.

Updated

Stevie Williams earns five KOM points at the top of Sestrières

That’s some sprint from Stevie Williams to take some valuable climbing points over Valentin Madouas. Could the Welshman challenge for the polka dot jersey?

90 km to go: Van der Poel is perhaps the only rider in the breakaway that one would think is in GC contention, yet he’s with a group that are largely pure climbers that have waited three days for this stage. Will be interesting to see how aggressive Van der Poel is here, especially with the peloton closing the gap, back to 2min08 secs. That’s over 35 seconds that has been eaten up in the last 10 minutes or so.

Updated

92km to go: “I’ve ridden this exact route, albeit the other way and with 1100cc of Yamaha power to assist,” emails Gary Naylor. “As a Brit, it’s impossible to understand the scale of these climbs unless you’ve actually covered them. That they do Sestriere (always Chiapucci’s Col) as an amuse bouche and then the Galibier as a main course just defies belief”.

I came relatively late to elite bike racing in my life, but it never fails to astound me what the physical feats are here. That they have come back, day after day, and knock off 150km at ridiculous speeds, on outrageous inclines, is unfathomable. I once did around 100km at a medium pace, on a route from Lyon to Paris back in 2016, and my legs were like jelly getting off the bike. I barely made it to my bed.

Updated

Hello all.

95km to go: The lead group are hurtling up a 6% incline and have stretched their gap to around 2min45secs. Warren Barguil, part of that group, now has a virtual yellow jersey, currently nine seconds ahead of second-placed Odd Christian Eiking (also in the breakaway) and 16 seconds clear of Remco Evenepoel in third. Vingegaard and Pogacar are fourth and fifth respectively in these virtual standings, around 19 seconds back from Barguil.

Updated

97km to go … And with the lead group’s advantage hitting two minutes, here’s Michael.

100km to go … It’s a 17-man escape group. The gap is now out to 1m 11s. To save some typing, here it is:

Updated

102km to go … A look at some of the action from these early stages:

Updated

106km to go … Now we have a big bunch clear at the front as the pace eases. Mathieu van der Poel is among it, but there are around 20 riders clear. And the pace has subsided: they already have 48 seconds. It’s now 1m 57s to the Van Aert group.

Updated

109km to go … And the main pack are back together again. One time gap of note: Wout van Aert is back down the road at around 1m 13s down.

111km to go … Up the valley they go and the front quartet aren’t able to pull out much of a gap. The group comprises Alexey Lutsenko, Christopher Juul-Jensen, Oier Lazkano and Tobias Halland Johannessen, but it doesn’t look like they’ll hold out for long.

114km to go … Another kick off the front and four riders go clear.

115km to go … This epically long first climb to Sestrieres officially clocks in as a category two, with 39.9km at an average gradient of 3.7%.

In the meantime, here’s a piece from Rich Tenorio via our US office that’s well worth your time:

When cycling first took the US by storm in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black Americans joined in the new pastime. One Black cyclist, Marshall “Major” Taylor, became a world champion in 1899. Yet American cycling installed a color line in professional racing. Opportunities became so limited that Black competitors had to take them wherever they could find them – including on the vaudeville stage and in Europe. Their story is documented in a new book, Black Cyclists: The Race for Inclusion, by Robert J Turpin, a professor of history at Lees-McRae College in North Carolina.

118km to go … It’s hot, both in terms of pace and the temperature on a glorious day, somewhere in the region of 27C where the riders currently are. It’s currently 18C in Valloire at today’s finish. There are still 29km to go on the current incline …

Updated

122km to go … And the breakaway is consumed by the main group.

125km to go … A small breakaway group forms, with Pedersen joined by Frank van den Broek – the star of stage one – as well as Britain’s Fred Wright, Kevin Geniets and Harold Tejada. The gap is minimal to the peloton, mind.

Updated

132km to go … It’s been a ferocious opening to the stage as the elevation gradually winds up for the riders, with Mads Pedersen going clear early to take the solitary sprint point for the day.

Some pre-stage imagery from Pinerolo:

And they’re off …

Preamble

Good afternoon and welcome to our live, rolling coverage of stage four of this year’s Tour de France. And it’s going to get spicy.

Michael Butler will be our man in the saddle with you shortly, but in the meantime, we’ll cover the early miles as the riders roll out of Pinerolo for a 140km trek to Valloire. To start you off, here’s William Fotheringham’s rundown from his pre-race stage-by-stage guide:

Gone are the days when the Tour’s opening week was a stultifying succession of sprint stages: this is pure climbing. The first 50km are uphill, but the sting comes at the end; it’s unprecedented for the Tour to go over a pass as high as the Galibier this early on. If the defending champion, Jonas Vingegaard, is short of form we will find out here; the downhill finale will suit Tom Pidcock, arguably the fastest descender in the bunch.

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