Result: AFTER MISSING OUT by a hair’s breadth to Mark Cavendish on Monday, Andrei Greipel made no mistake today and won the sprint finish on today’s fourth stage into Rouen. Alessandro Petacchi was in second with Tom Veelers in third. There’s no change in the yellow jersey standing where Fabian Cancellara still leads by seven seconds from Bradley Wiggins and Sylvain Chavanel.
Here’s how it happened: Another day of drama — are Tour stages ever boring? — ended with a win for Andrei Greipel and bitter disappointment for stage favourite Mark Cavendish who was brought down in a major crash just under three kilometres from the finish line.
Wednesday’s 214.5km stage from Abbeville to Rouen saw a three-man breakaway of Yukiya Arashiro, David Moncoutie and Anthony Delaplace at the front for most of a fairly routine stage. With Team Sky seemingly happy to tread water around yellow jersey hopeful Bradley Wiggins in the peloton, Mark Cavendish knew that he would need a repeat of Monday’s brilliant solo effort if he was to add a 22nd stage win to his CV.
The Manx missile got himself in a position to challenge but came a-cropper in a major crash when Robbie Hunter clipped a wheel and brought a chunk of the peloton down with him 2.7 kilometres out.
Free from the danger, Greipel and his Lotto-Bellisol lead-out train timed their run perfectly to win the stage by a bike length from Alessandro Petacchi.
The big winner: Andre Greipel. Today’s win was the second of the 29-year-old German’s career and you could see how much it meant to him as he let out a roar crossing the finish line. Monday’s narrow loss to Cavendish will have made today even sweeter.
The big loser: Mark Cavendish. Even without the full support of his team, today’s stage was tailor-made for him before his luck deserted him. On the plus side, he doesn’t appear to have picked up anything more serious than a few bumps and bruises.
What about the Irish? Another solid day for Nicolas Roche and Dan Martin, both of whom finished in the main bunch, 55th and 72nd respectively. Roche remains 21st in the GC standings while Martin is down the field in 87th following yesterday’s crash.
So what happens tomorrow then? Another flat stage as the Tour moves from Rouen to Saint-Quentin, a 196.5km trip.
