Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Team Emirates) has won the first mountain stage of the Tour de France. The Slovenian finished off the formidable work by his teammates on the Galibier, where Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), like all other competitors, had to concede time. In the descent, Pogacar extended that lead further, earning him the yellow jersey.
Barely three days into the Tour de France and we've already crossed the Alps: in 2024, the ASO, organizer of the Tour de France, is capable of such feats. After two tricky hill stages in the Italian heat and a lengthy (230-kilometer) trek to Turin, the fourth stage started in Pinerolo for a short but fierce mountain stage to Valloire.
At 1:05 PM, the riders were ready for the 139-kilometer race, starting full throttle as soon as director Christian Prudhomme waved his flag. Victor Campenaerts shot out like a comet on behalf of Lotto-Dstny and took Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike) along, but upon looking back, the rest of the peloton didn't immediately give way.
One of the next attacks came from Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek, who started this stage with clear intent: to go for the intermediate sprint after twenty kilometers. The strong Dane was joined by Frank van den Broek (dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) and seemed to be getting a free ride for a minute, but that was beyond the other sprinter teams.
Alpecin-Deceuninck and Intermarché-Wanty put in a final effort to catch Pedersen after twenty kilometers, but he still managed to beat the other fast men, Jasper Philipsen and Biniam Girmay. The first milestone of the day had been passed, so now we could shift the focus to the early breakaway.
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Van der Poel in leading group thanks to impressive effort
After ten kilometers of back-and-forth attacks, the early break formed in two stages. Who was in? Chris Juul-Jensen (Jayco AlUla), Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale), David Gaudu, Romain Gregoire, Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Stephen Williams (Israel-Premier Tech), Oier Lazkano (Movistar Team), Raúl García Pierna, Cristian Rodríguez (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Kobe Goossens (Intermarché-Wanty), Warren Barguil (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL), Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan), Odd Christian Eiking, Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) and Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies).
Particularly notable was Van der Poel's presence, as the Dutchman kept up in the mountains and made a strong surge forward with one powerful attack. There were no real threats to the general classification present, but with Barguil and Eiking trailing at just 2:31 minutes in the GC, EF Education-EasyPost preferred not to take risks. UAE-Team Emirates lent a hand as we made our way towards Sestrieres, the first long climb of this Tour.
Nils Politt returned to the main group and immediately took the lead to control the pace. As a result, the seventeen-man breakaway group only managed a two-minute lead atop Sestrieres, where Williams snatched points from Madouas. Van der Poel then descended like a stone, extending the gap towards the second challenge of the day: the Col de Montgenevre.
On that climb, we mostly got a status quo: the peloton reduced the gap with Politt leading, Williams taking the mountain points, and Van der Poel handling the descent. In the valley towards the foot of the Galibier, we saw a brief surprise attack from UAE-Team Emirates. Simon Yates briefly fell behind but quickly rejoined the pack.
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Politt continued to push the pace, closing the gap on the early slopes of the Galibier. Tim Wellens followed suit, escalating the situation in the breakaway group. Lazkano led the charge, with the wind also playing a significant role, while a cautious Van der Poel stayed back.
UAE-Team Emirates establishes dominance on Galibier
After Wellens, Marc Soler and Pavel Sivakov took over on the steeper kilometers. The Frenchman caught the last remaining breakaway rider, Lazkano, and caused the first casualties among the other classification riders: Tom Pidcock had to drop off very early, as did Simon Yates of Jayco AlUla.
Then, surprisingly, even the yellow jersey struggled, Richard Carapaz. Enric Mas, Louis Meintjes, Guillaume Martin, Aleksandr Vlasov, Derek Gee, Pello Bilbao and Laurens De Plus faced the same challenge due to the relentless pace UAE-Team Emirates was setting.
The Emirati team also managed to exhaust Matteo Jorgenson, the sole remaining Visma rider beside Vingegaard. Santiago Buitrago, Egan Bernal, Felix Gall and Adam Yates also struggled. Almeida led the charge but needed assistance. Remaining at the front at this point were Ayuso, Almeida, Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Mikel Landa, Primoz Roglic and Carlos Rodriguez.
This eaight-man group reached the final kilometer of the Galibier, where Pogacar launched a devastating attack. Vingegaard was the only one who attempted to keep up with the Slovenian but even he gradually lost ground as the summit neared. The Dane reached the barren summit ten seconds behind his rival, who also secured additional bonus seconds. Evenepoel followed shortly after.
Next question: what would happen on the descent? Pogacar descended aggressively, while Vingegaard showed no fear. Evenepoel lost some ground, and during the descent, the Dane also had to yield. Rodriguez, Evenepoel, Roglic and Ayuso caught up with him.
Stage 4 Tour de France 2024
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