Stage Four ended with an expected bunch sprint and a third victory in four stages for Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano), but it was far from a routine win for Kittel, who lost contact with his sprint train and was forced to improvise. As he has done several times already in 2014, Kittel found another wheel, waited for the right moment and then powered his way to the line to claim the win.
He may function best with a proper lead-out, but he is far from a one trick pony, he has the power and just enough burst to launch his own sprint, making him exceedingly dangerous. If the other sprinters are going to beat him they will need the Giant-Shimano train to go awry, as it did today, and an absolutely perfect lead-out of their own. Without that their chances of claiming a stage win will be reliant upon using the wind and hills to drop Kittel before the race reaches the finale.
With 3km remaining, Giant-Shimano were jostling with Omega Pharma-Quick Step for control of the peloton, but a wet and technical run-in saw both lose their way. Instead it was the Russian Champion Aleksandr Porsev (Katusha Team) who led the race in the final kilometre with his team mate Alexander Kristoff on his wheel, while Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and Kittel were following Kristoff’s wheel. Ideally there would have been a third Katusha rider enabling them to deliver Kristoff close to the line, however there wasn’t and Kristoff had to launch his sprint with 500m remaining. The Norwegian showed good strength to hold his speed right to the line, but he had no answer for the brilliance of Kittel. French Champion Arnaud Démare (FDJ) finished third to take his first ever podium placing in the Tour de France.
Speaking through the Giant-Shimano website after the race Kittel said: "All I could think about was the last corner. We had studied the stage before with the coaches and knew that after the bend it was 250m to go. I nearly went then but held back and then went after the corner to get over to Kristoff. I had to go from a long way out but I managed to get past before the line.”
Luis Angel Mate (Cofidis) and Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) formed the break early in the stage, but were never given a long enough leash to stand a chance of making it to the finish; the Giant-Shimano and Lotto Belisol led peloton were taking no risks. Cannondale and Lotto later used the short cobbled descent after the intermediate sprint to split the peloton, but a 15km chase brought everything back together. Instead the day’s biggest drama came when the defending Tour de France champion Chris Froome (Team Sky) went down hard early in the stage.
Froome seemed to clip the wheel of a rider who had moved in front of him, sending the Sky rider to the ground. He injured his wrist, hurt his hip, potentially reopening wounds fron his crash a month ago, and gave the team quite a scare. Later in the day Team Sky Directeur Sportif Nicolas Portal spoke to France Télévisions saying: "We were scared out of our wits, like everyone else, but after talking with him, everything seems okay. He hit the tarmac hard, but everything's all right.”
An x-ray after the conclusion of the stage reportedly showed no sign of a fracture, but no official word has been released and further evaluation will be necessary to determine the full extent of the injury. Regardless of how badly the wrist is hurt, it is certain to be an issue tomorrow as the peloton takes on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, a surface renowned for the punishment it delivers to the joints. Froome avoided losing time but still slipped two places on the GC today, as a result the Team Sky car will be further behind the riders tomorrow which will be an issue if he is suffering badly from the effects of the crash, or if punctures strike as they so often do on the pavé.