Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) won at the end of this afternoon for the second time in his career a Tour de France stage, with the stage win of the 4th stage of the Tour de France 2011 in Mûr-de-Bretagne.

A long lasting leading group with 5 riders includign Jérémy Roy (FDJ), Gorka Izagirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Imanol Erviti (Movistar Team), Blel Kadri (AG2R La Mondiale) and Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) was finally taken back at a bit less than 4 kilometers from the finish and the stage was decided in a sprint-like way!

The summary of the 4th stage: Lorient > Mûr-de-Bretagne

Early this afternoon the peloton started this 4th stage, 172.5 km long, on wet roads in Lorient and going towards the final climb of Mûr-de-Bretagne.

As usual there have been several attempts to break away from the peloton but they all remained unsuccessful until the one by Jérémy Roy after 9 kilometers in the race. He left with Gorka Izagirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Imanol Erviti (Movistar Team), Blel Kadri (AG2R La Mondiale) and Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team), and they stayed ahead for the rest of the day.

Their gap went up to 4'55" and the peloton tried to bring it down without much success. Leading in the break away group, Johnny Hoogerland attacked to go get the point for the King of the Mountains classification on top of the Côte de Laz and again to take the 20 points at the sprint in Spézet. Jérémy Roy followed him there, ahead of Blel Kadri and Gorka Izagirre.

While approaching the finish line, the riders found back the sun which accompanied us since the start of this Tour and Izagirre tried to continue alone. He didn't have much success in that though, because the other 4 members of the leading group quickly came back on him. The peloton however also approached very quickly and while the teams of the favourite riders for the stage win, and especially Omega Pharma-Lotto for Philippe Gilbert, weren't able to get back on them until the last 5 kilometers, it was finally at a bit less than 4 kilometers from the finish that the breakaway ended.

Everything was thus completely open again and leading in the peloton we mainly saw Alberto Contador (Team Saxo Bank-Sungard), the very big favourite Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team). Jelle Vanendert and Jurgen van den Broeck did all they could to put their leader in the best possible position for this stage's finish but finally it were Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans who battled for the win. From the head of the peloton, Cadel Evans was the first to attack on the final flat part (the last 500 meters after the summit of the climb) and only Contador was able to get close enough to him to dream of the stage victory. He was dreaming of it that much that he even timidly put his hands in the air.

Timidly and finally useless because on the finish photo we could see that Cadel Evans actually took the stage win, ahead of the Spanniard and Alexandre Vinokourov. Philippe Gilbert finally only ended 5th, behind Rigoberto Uran.

Jérémy Roy was able to make up for his deception of the first stage where he wasn't elected most combative rider because today he was the one who launched the breakaway of the day and he thus got the Prix Brandt de combativité at the end of the day!

The classifications after the 4th stage of the Tour de France 2011

The stage classification for Lorient > Mûr-de-Bretagne

Here's the top 5 of this 4th stage of the Tour de France 2011:

1/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - 4h11'39"
2/ Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-Sungard)
3/ Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana)
4/ Rigoberto Uran (Team Sky)
5/ Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto)

The general classification after the 4th stage

In the top 5 of the general classification after this 4th stage, we loose Linus Gerdemann (Team Leopard-Trek) who dropped back to the 25th place and Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) who went down to 7th. Fränk Schleck (Team Leopard-Trek) climbs up to the 3rd place while Cadel Evans' victory allows the Australian rider to get close to the first place at 1 second behind Thor Hushovd (Team Garmin-Cervélo). Andreas Klöden (Team Radioshack) also joins the top 5.

1/ Thor Hushovd (Team Garmin-Cervélo) - 13h58'25"
2/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - +0'01"
3/ Fränk Schleck (Team Leopard-Trek) - +0'04"
4/ David Millar (Team Garmin-Cervélo) - +0'08"
5/ Andreas Klöden (Team Radioshack) - +0'10"

The points classification

The green jersey will stay on José Joaquin Rojas (Movistar Team) shoulders and he's now 2 points ahead of Cadel Evans.

1/ José Joaquin Rojas (Movistar Team) - 82 points
2/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - 80 points
3/ Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) - 77 points
4/ Thor Hushovd (Team Garmin-Cervélo) - 70 points
5/ Tyler Farrar (Team Garmin-Cervélo) - 68 points

King of the mountains classification

The points for this classification are not significant at all for the time being, but here are the 5 riders who got the points for the King of the Mountains classification for which the polka dot jersey will now be on the shoulders of Cadel Evans.

1/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - 2 points
2/ Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) - 1 point
3/ Mickaël Delage (FDJ) - 1 point
4/ Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - 1 point
5/ Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank Sungard) - 1 point

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Tour de France | Tour de France 2011

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