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Elia Viviani clinched the first Tour de France stage of his career to bring back-to-back wins for Deceuninck Quick-Step, following Julian Alaphilippe’s victory on stage three, as the team produced a perfectly executed sprint train to edge out their rivals.
Wearing the yellow jersey, Alaphilippe did his share of the work on the front of the peloton before handing over to Max Richeze, who dragged Viviani to the front with a perfectly timed surge before moving over with a couple of hundred metres left to let the Italian sprinter escape down the barriers.
Peter Sagan and Alexander Kristoff both followed on the other side of the road but neither could quite reel in Viviani, with the green jersey of Sagan craftily nudged by the right shoulder of Richeze on his way through. Lotto-Soudal’s Australian sprinter Caleb Ewan finished third ahead of Sagan, with Jumbo-Visma’s Dylan Groenewegen a disappointing fifth.
For the main general classification contenders it was a pleasantly uneventful day.as Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal and the rest avoided trouble through what was a technical winding route into the finish town of Nancy. Alaphilippe remains in the yellow jersey with Jumbo-Visma’s Steven Kruijswick 25 seconds back overall, and the other GC riders a further 20 seconds or so behind.
Thomas is already five seconds behind his teammate and co-leader Egan Bernal, but he dismissed any suggestion that he could not afford to let the gap widen further this week.
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“It is what it is,” Thomas said. “No-one wins the Tour on five-second sprint finishes but obviously it would be better not to have lost that. I was hoping just to slowly drift back a bit and the next thing I know no-one is coming past me and I was like ‘I have to try and close this gap’ but it was a bit late by then.
“Obviously five seconds – it is nice not to lose that. If I am off the podium by four I might be more disappointed.”
Ineos team principal Sir Dave Brailsford dismissed the gap as irrelevant. “I think way too much has been made of it, if I am honest,” he said. “If anyone understands the sport, you watch the sport, there is 30-metre gap. ‘G’ sat up a little bit, he thought people were trying to come over him and that is it.
Elia Viviani crosses the finish line to win stage four (EPA)
“People are trying to make out that it is a five-second gap and it is not....It makes no difference.”
A breakaway of three riders led for most of the day, with CCC’s Michael Schar the last to be caught on the final climb. At that point the sprinters’ teams took over and Quick-Step showed exactly why they are masters of executing a single-stage victory.
The result means the opening four stages have been exclusively shared by Jumbo-Visma and Quick-Step, two teams who have built impressive stables of riders over the past two years. But perhaps Quick-Step’s focus on days like this one showed here, and their lack of an overall contender allowed them to dedicate everything at their disposal to Viviani’s ambitions.
The 30-year-old, riding in only his second Tour, has made a habit of winning at the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana in recent years but was under pressure coming into the Tour after drawing a blank in this year’s Giro. Rumours had circulated about a change in team this summer, but that now seems unlikely.
Wednesday’s stage five could provide another opportunity for puncheurs like Alaphilippe, with four challenging categorised climbs preceding a flat finish in Colmar, which looks inviting for the sprinters should the racing be slow enough for them to get there at the front.
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