Tour de France: Marcel Kittel snatches stage four in incredible photo finish

The Tour’s bunch sprints are always tense affairs but usually the tension precedes the finish rather than coming after it. Here, however, the margin between Marcel Kittel and the Frenchman Bryan Coquard on the line gave a positively generous look to the few inches that had separated Mark Cavendish from Andre Greipel in Angers the previous day. Kittel landed his ninth Tour stage win by a few millimetres, so tight that initially the French television commentators were invited it had gone their man’s way. Again, no one knew who had won until the photo finish had been scrutinised.

The finish up the 700 metres of Avenue Georges Dumas from the river Vienne was steep enough for long enough to give the relative lightweights such as Coquard reason to hope, and brought a whole new element to the finish mix. So too did the breathtakingly fast and highly dangerousy downhill run-in through the town to the river, past the railway station, round bends with no visible exit, through roundabouts and in and out of traffic islands, all at a speed some five or 10kph faster than usual.

The triple 2014 stage winner, Alexander Kristoff, was first to make his effort, but as Coquard said later, this was a finish where the winner would have to leave it late; not surprisingly the Norwegian faded as Kittel kicked in the middle of the road, with Coquard accelerating rapidly to close the initial gap from a few lengths behind, but then visibly struggling to come level with the German. In the final metres he had just enough momentum, or so it seemed, but his right shoulder made contact with Kittel’s left and slowed him down fractionally.

The Frenchman has progressed steadily since winning the silver medal in the track omnium at the London Olympics and will surely soon win the stage he merits; however, the presence of local Raymond Poulidor – the celebrated “eternal second”, and most popular French cyclist of all time – on the podium afterwards served as a reminder that finishing a valiant runner-up is anything but career suicide in France.

Slumped on the tarmac afterwards, Kittel described the wait to find out who had won as, “horrible”; more than usual was riding on this win after he spent 2015 in the doldrums. English fans will remember his brief appearance at the Tour de Yorkshire which was painful to watch and summed up a season spent fighting a virus, making one abortive comeback after another, until the Giant-Alpecin team refused to send him to the Tour after which he left to replace Mark Cavendish as the Etixx team’s in-house fastman.

“This is a very, very important day for my career; if I can win even a 237km stage with an uphill finish that shows I’m back at the highest level,” said the German, who had already shown that 2015 was well behind him by winning 12 races this year including two stages of the Giro d’Italia. With both him and Cavendish seemingly back to their best, that promises much for the remaining flat stages, beginning with Thursday’s run south to Montauban.

Cavendish lost contact with his lead-out men, began the sprint well back, was boxed in as other riders lost momentum, but still had enough zip to finish eighth in a finish that did not entirely suit him, one place behind the British newcomer Dan McLay, whose promising showing continued. However, the green jersey is now on the shoulders of Peter Sagan by a measly five points – the world champion was third here, right in the mix once again – and when the race enters the mountains the Slovakian is likely to draw further ahead.

With a 216km stage including five second and third category hills in the final 80km through the Cantal, the first serious climbing comes on Wednesday, earlier than in any Tour since the 1992 race made a brief visit to the Pyrenees. There is nothing on the scale of what lies ahead later on, but it should be enough to create a selection and – as on the road to Cherbourg on Sunday – one or two overall contenders are likely to come unstuck. Alberto Contador will be closely watched, so too Geraint Thomas, who has been nursing severe bruising to the ribs since his crash at the finish at Utah Beach.

Conventionally, the Tour organisers wait a little longer to send the field up any serious climbs, but the thinking this year is that the sooner the field is tired out the better, as the fatigue will help to settle nerves and thus prevent crashes. After Wednesday, the longest any flat respite between mountain stages will last is a single day – the exit from the Pyrenees next Tuesday is via the highest pass of the entire race, the Port d’Envalira – lending weight to the argument that this is the most mountainous Tour of recent years.

Whether the yellow jersey changes hands at the finish at Le Lioran on Wedesday remains to be seen. French eyes will be on Julian Alaphilippe, who lies just 12 seconds behind Sagan and can climb, but the world champion has managed to ride strongly through what is termed “medium mountain” in the past. The more intriguing question is whether Tinkoff will expend energy in defence of his jersey, which in turn may depend on whether Contador is seen as a busted flush and Sagan’s lead takes priority over the Spaniard’s chances of a high place overall.

Solid day for Martin

Dan Martin had another solid day, avoiding any crashes or other complications during the stage and then crossing the line in the first third of the main field. His 59th place saw him finish in the same time as stage winner Kittel, his Etixx-QuickStep teammate.

Speaking to the Irish Times after the stage, Martin said that he was impressed by Kittel’s recovery from being under pressure on the lumpy run-in to the finish. He added that the stage success would boost morale on the team and add impetus to the riders in the days ahead. Martin remains on the same time as the other overall contenders, 18 seconds behind race leader Sagan. He is 13th overall.

Sam Bennett is continuing to recover from his bad crash on stage one. He conceded more time, eight minutes and 59 seconds, but his priority is to give himself time to heal before making a push for later sprint stages.

Martin will look to shine in Wednesday’s fifth stage, which concludes with a series of medium climbs which should create a select group. “I’m feeling really good,” he told the Irish Times.

(Guardian service)