Tour de France Stage Four

Stage Four: Le Touquet-Paris-Plage to Lille Métropole

The worst news of the day for Kiwi supporters of the Tour de France. At 22km to go, Greg Hendseron leading out the peloton, crashed at a roundabout. Behind him Lotto Belisol teammates Lars Bak and Bart De Clercq also crashed. Bak and De Clercq could continue, but Henderson stayed on the ground. The Tour is over for him. The team has lost an important member of the sprint train, and lead out man for Andre Greipel.

Team doctor Jan Mathieu said "Greg Henderson has a deep cut of twelve centimeters on his right knee. During a first check-up in the medical cabinet after the finish, the wound was stitched. Greg went to the hospital at Herentals where he will undergo minor surgery by doctor Toon Claes. The knee will be drained to avoid the wound gets infected."
Calamity struck when three of André Greipel's Lotto-Belisol teammates crashed and Kiwi Greg Henderson was forced to leave the race.

After three days of racing in England, the Tour headed to France with a stage from the beaches of Le Touquet to Lille. With only two short climbs of fourth category on the route the stage looked like an new opportunity for sprinters. The first stage on French soil started without 2010 Tour champion Andy Schleck (TFR), taken out of commission by a ligament injury caused by a fall sustained in the approach to London the day before. Defending champion Chris Froome also got a taste of tarmac a few kilometres into the stage after being dragged into a fall suffering  a bruised right side and sore wrist. The fall also involved Bauke Mollema (Belkin) and Spanish champion Jon Izaguirre (Movistar).

The break of the day was made by Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) and Luis Maté (Cofidis) , who attacked soon after the start. Maté took advantage to grab the points at the top of the first category 4 climb in defence of teammate Cyril Lemoine's polka-dot jersey. 

The intermediate sprint was contested in Cassel, the scene of Thomas Voeckler's win at the 2011 Four Days of Dunkirk. The Frenchman took it ahead of Maté, with Peter Sagan (Cannondale) coming in third to add 15 green jersey points to his tally. After the sprint, the Slovak's teammates joined forces with Lotto to force a split. Riders like Michał Kwiatkowski (OMQ) and Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha) were caught unawares but eventually managed to claw their way back.
Maté was then reeled because of a mechanical defect.
Voeckler's gap extended to 1min 30sec at the top of the Mont Noir and his daring solo adventure lasted for most of the race. It ballooned to 3min 30sec by 50 kilometre mark. The chasers regrouped and the Frenchman's lead dwindled to just twenty seconds as he got out of Armentières, 30 km before the line. Thomas Voeckler's adventure came to an end in the outskirts of Lille with 16 km to go of the 163.5km from Le Touquet-Paris Plage to Lille-Métropol.

A series of incidents, including Peter Sagan's fall 15 km before the line, messed up the final sprint. When Alberto Contador and Andrew Talansky's teammates moved to the front to keep their leaders out of harm's way, Katusha seized the opportunity to set up Alexander Kristoff. Kristoff's burst of raw power had him in front until the line, but Marcel Kittel just took it.

Kittel claimed his third win in four stages at this year's Tour de France, Kristoff and Démare got second and third respectively. André Greipel became sixth.

The general classification remained unchanged with race leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) holding a narrow two second lead on all of his key challengers.

Read more at www.letour.com/le-tour/2014

Stage Five will be the cobblestone stage between Ypres and Arenberg.