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Tour de France 2022: Wout van Aert wins stage four to extend lead – as it happened

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Van Aert left his rivals for dead on the final climb in a devastating show of power and cunning to extend his lead in the GC standings

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Tue 5 Jul 2022 12.35 EDTFirst published on Tue 5 Jul 2022 07.11 EDT
Wout Van Aert
Visma's Wout Van Aert celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win stage 4 Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters
Visma's Wout Van Aert celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win stage 4 Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

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That’s me done for today. Thanks for reading and for your emails and your tweets. You can join Luke McLaughlin tomorrow for our live coverage of what should be an electrifying fifth stage on the cobbles.

Here are the GC standings after four stages:

Photograph: https://www.letour.fr/

🎽 Jerseys after stage 4 / Maillots distinctifs après l'étape 4

💛 @WoutvanAert
💚 @WoutvanAert
🔴 @MagnusCort
👶 @TamauPogi #TDF2022 pic.twitter.com/QSDSEPR7aD

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 5, 2022

Let’s not get too carried away. Pogacar is only 32 seconds back in the GC. But Van Aert’s form has been frightening in these early stages, with three second-placed finished and the stage win in Calais today. The Slovenian will surely row back some of that time in the later mountain stages. But tomorrow now becomes an absolutely HUGE stage, with pressure on all the GC riders on the cobbles. One mercy is that the weather looks fair, so no rain and minimal winds. Here is what awaits, courtesy of our stage-by-stage guide.

Stage 5, Wednesday 6 July: Lille-Arenberg Porte du Hainault, 157km

Assuming the Great Belt has been kind to the field, this is the first decisive day, with 11 stretches of treacherous cobbles in the final 80km. There will be a huge battle to be at the front for the first section at Villers-au-Tertre and that is bound to lead to crashes. In 2014, Vincenzo Nibali effectively won the Tour in a similar stage; this year, the big favourites will be Van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel.

Stage five preview

Van Aert speaks!

I didn’t want to take the risk. It was quite obvious that we were trying something with the team. I felt it was super hard on the climb and we heard on the radio that were was some damage. So I went for it. I decided to go alone and then it was 10km of all-out suffering.

Van Aert is embraced, mid-interview, by his Jumbo team-mates. It’s worth mentioning again the effort by Jumbo-Visma’s Nathan van Hooydonck and Tiesj Benoot to put Van Aert in position on that breakaway. Geraint Thomas and Adam Yates were desperately scrambling to stay on the wheel of the Jumbo lads, but were simply spat out of that back. They had no answer to the power of Van Aert and co.

That was a unique attack from someone in yellow. We might have seen an attack like that in the mountains, perhaps, but rarely like that on a little climb at the end.

Philipsen was leading the peloton, and were going so fast that they must have expected to catch Van Aert.

Pogacar and Yates were nowhere to be seen.

That’s a seventh stage win for Van Aert, who cements his position.

The peloton came home around 15 seconds behind the Belgian. This is how they finished!

1. Wout van Aert
2. Jasper Philipsen
3. Christophe Laporte
4. Alexander Kristoff
5. Peter Sagan

🏆🇧🇪 @WoutvanAert flies to victory! 💛

🏆🇧🇪 @WoutvanAert vole jusqu’à la victoire ! 💛#TDF2022 pic.twitter.com/DvQogMEgve

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 5, 2022
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Van Aert wins stage four!

What a sublime ride from the Belgian! A brilliantly timed breakaway from Jumbo Wisma, combined with the firepower and thrust in Van Aert’s legs in that final 10km, gave the yellow jersey holder the win! Huge, and Van Aert’s celebrates with a bird-like celebration as he crosses the line!

3km to go: Van Aert is giving it his all. This is phenomenal ride for a man in yellow who has finished second in all three of the stages so far in this year’s Tour. He appears determined to secure his first stage here.

5km to go: There is no sign of Van Aert cracking! The lead is now 27 seconds back to the peloton, and there’s a third group, 50 seconds back, including Groenewegen!

8km to go: Has Van Aert gone too early?! He takes the KoM point at Cap Blanc-Nez and has opened a 20 second lead over the peloton, with Roglic, Yates and Pogacar all in tow. Van Aert looks incredibly strong, that was an incredible burst, that caught everyone by surprise.

Van Aert is all alone at the front!

10km to go: Major problems for the sprinters, then! Van Aert is too strong and suddenly, the holder of the yellow jersey is all alone at the front of the race. Nathan van Hooydonck and Tiesj Benoot gave him an excellent boost in the breakaway there.

Visma’s Wout Van Aert wearing the overall leader’s yellow jersey in action ahead of the peloton during stage 4 Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
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Jumbo Visma have broken away!

12km to go: Here we go. The peloton have upped it, and within about a minute, Perez’s lead has been halved. Ten seconds in it. Jumbo Visma have gone, and caught everyone off guard. There is a split!

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14 km to go: What a ride this is from Perez. On his own, this is so gutsy, as he makes his way up one of these uncategorised climbs. He remains about 30 seconds ahead.

20km to go: Perez’s lead remains a touch over 30 seconds but will surely be caught. Some members of the peloton were caught doing 80km/hr on one particular descent. Crazy.

24km to go: What an email this is, from David Alderton, who has a fine cycling hat on his email avatar:

Seeing Jack Bauer at the front reminded me of one of the greatest ever stages I have seen. He was in a break from the moment the flag dropped on Stage 15 in 2014 and was looking to win the stage in Nimes after coving 22km, only to lose out with something like 20 metres to go. I’ve never shouted at a television quite as much, nor have I wanted to buy someone a big milkshake and say “it’s ok, mate, it’s Ok”. He’s a phenomenal rider, did near faultless ride, and then the cruel reality of bike racing crushed it all. It’s the best sport in the world.

This is the stage that David is talking about. It’s a cruel world.

This is what William Fotheringham wrote in 2014:

“In the shadow of the Roman Arena Jack Bauer and Martin Elmiger made a doomed attempt to win the stage in a finish redolent of a pair of gladiators being put to the sword after being given the thumbs up. After spending every pedal turn of the 222km stage – the third longest of the race – in front, all of seven pedal revolutions separated Bauer from the finish line when Kristoff swept past him with less than 25 metres to the line.

“Bauer left Elmiger for dead with 100m to go and was clearly within reach of New Zealand’s first ever individual stage win in the Tour – Kiwis have twice been part of squads that have won team time-trial stages – when Kristoff and the others came haring past. Understandably he collapsed in tears afterwards.”

27km to go: Ineos and BikeExchange-Jayco are among the leaders of the peloton. Having a good position going into the final climb with around 10km to go, at Côte du Cap Blanc-Nez, is absolutely pivotal to make sure you aren’t dropped for the final stretch to Calais. Plenty of jostling, then, but I don’t think there will be any significant breakaways until we reach that final climb, which lasts only about 1km, but is very steep.

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30km to go: From the helicopter’s camera, we can now see the coast.

🔥 Things are heating up at the front of the peloton, with the gap at just over 1' with 30km to go

🔥 La course s'anime en tête de peloton ! L'homme de tête n'a plus que 1' d'avance.#TDF2022 pic.twitter.com/Mp2p18aZDE

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 5, 2022

36km to go: Ben Francis sends a message in response to Paul Griffin’s email:

The first Tour I properly paid attention to was 1997 (I was six at the time), and my memory was of a lot of sprint stages early on. I can’t find the actual stage profiles, but looking at the stages and results, it began with a 7km prologue won by Chris Boardman at an average speed of 52 km/h. Then followed *eight* sprint stages, of which seven look to have ended in bunch sprints (three wins for Erik Zabel, two for Mario Cipollini). The exception was stage 5, where the breakaway stayed away but Cipollini led the peloton home at 3’24.

I feel like flat openings to the Tour were pretty common back in the 90’s, and the trend for having more variety in the opening week started rather more recently. The other amazing thing, looking back at 1997, was how long stages were in the EPO era. Five of those first eight that year were over 200 km, and two were over 260!

38km to go: Bradley Wiggins, out on the Eurosport motorbike, is reporting how there is a dangerous little cross-head wind on the plateau that Perez is currently on. That spells a tricky little bit ahead for those in the peloton. With about 23km to go, the riders will reach the coast and change direction east towards Calais. That will be another test.

41km to go: Cort makes it back to the peloton and the safety of his EF Education-Easy Post team-mates, who pass him a few gels and drinks. He inhales all that is given to him.

(L-R) Magnus Cort Nielsen of Denmark and Team EF Education - Easypost Polka Dot Mountain Jersey and Anthony Perez of France and Team Cofidis compete in the breakaway while fans cheer Photograph: Tim de Waele/Getty Images
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43km to go: Cort is done for the day and will drop back now towards the peloton, who are just over a minute away now. It looks as though Perez will give it a go, though, and he’s left as the sole member of the breakaway.

47km to go: Cort takes one more point, uncontested, at Côte du Ventus, to make it 11/11 for this year’s race. Remarkable. Save for the first climb today, Perez has allowed Cort to take the KoM points today, and Cort allowed Perez to take the 20 points at the intermediate sprint. The two are deep in conversation at the front, it’s unclear what they are chatting about.

48km to go: I’ve barely mentioned Pogacar all day. He’s lurking menacingly about 10 wheels from the front of the peloton.

50km to go: Fifty to go! A bit more undulation now, as the peloton lurches up and down the climbs and descents. As Cort and Perez approach Côte du Ventus (no, no that one), there remains just one more categorised climb: Côte du Cap Blanc-Nez, with a maximum gradient of 12%-13%.

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54km to go: “What makes cobble stone sections so difficult to ride?” asks Jan Bruck, via email? “How do they effect the speed of the race? Are they stressful for bikes as well as riders? Are they a good spectacle to watch?”

Generally, it’s carnage, especially if the winds are up, and it’s wet. The cobbles are slippy, the grooves between them can trap a wheel, and the road itself is narrow. These bikes are built for speed and efficiency, so there is little to protect the hands and the body from shuddering up and down the track. This article, from 2014 on the one-day Paris-Roubaix, does a better job of explaining why cobbles are so perilous.

58km to go: Alpecin, Lotto-Soudal riders are leading the charge at the front of the peloton. This is a relatively flat part of the stage, as riders make their way north back towards the coast. It’s into a headwind, which is causing the peloton to bunch and swell.

64km to go: An email from Paul Griffin.

“As a race I’m finding it a little bit undercooked so far, like a hungover student’s full English. It got me wondering whether this is the flattest start to a Tour ever? There have been very few climbs, and none at the business end of stages. This perhaps accounts for the fact that, while it’s been a spectacular, er, spectacle, there’s no real narrative yet, apart from the understandable simmering antipathy between Groenewegen and Jakobsen. Plot twist please.”

I don’t have any precise stats to hand, but Denmark was very flat, and for all the enthusiasm of the fans, a little boring racing wise. The lack of wind didn’t help, either. A bit more NARRATIVE wouldn’t harm things, certainly. It’s at times like these that we really miss the presence of a home favourite to spice things up. A shame that Julian Alaphilippe, who strove to get fit after his horrendous accident at the Liège-Bastogne-Liège Classic in April, narrowly failed to get himself ready for the start this year.

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