Two-time runner-up Cadel Evans of BMC held off a late charge from Alberto Contador to claim a prestigious victory on the fourth stage of the Tour de France Tuesday.
Norwegian Thor Hushovd, tipped to lose the yellow jersey after the brutal two-kilometre finishing climb at the Mur de Bretagne, held on to the race lead after the 172.5 km ride from Lorient to here.
Hushovd, of the Garmin-Cervelo team, upset predictions to finish sixth on the stage and thus keep his 01sec lead on Evans intact ahead of Wednesday’s fifth stage to Cap Frehel.
Belgian champion Philippe Gilbert, who won the opening stage on a similar finish at Mont des Alouettes, was expected for a repeat on his 29th birthday.
But on a finish designed for the ‘punchers’ who excel in the hilly one-day classics, he could only finish in fifth place as Evans continued his perfect start to the race.
Evans’s American teammate George Hincapie took over pacing duties prior to the climb, but once at the foot of the steep 2km ascent all the favourites were bunched together.
Reigning champion Contador, who has had a disastrous start to the Tour, kept at the front in a bid to avoid losing any more time to his key rivals for the yellow jersey.
Despite the Saxo Bank climber taking things in hand when he moved to the front of a rapidly dwindling group 1.3km from the finish, Evans and Gilbert never looked threatened by the Spaniard.
Evans edged just a bike length in front of the group inside the final few hundred metres as the climb petered out, with Contador on his wheel and Kazakhstan’s Alexandre Vinokourov just behind.
Contador made a bid to pass Evans metres before the finish line, only for the Australian to win by a few centimetres to claim his first win of this year’s race.
Cavendish looks to make amends on stage five: Britain’s Mark Cavendish has pledged to make amends for his hit-and-miss Tour de France so far by claiming a 16th win on the race as quickly as he can.
“I think it’s going to take a very uneducated person to write me off this year,” said Cavendish after his fifth place finish on Monday’s first bunch sprint stage.
“I’ve got great form, the team’s got great form, it’s just a bit of bad luck.”
A 15-time stage winner in the past three years, Cavendish has come into his fifth Tour de France expected to continue dominating of rivals for the victories gained at the end of hectic bunch sprints.
Despite the likelihood of a bunch finish on Wednesday’s fifth stage — a 164.5 km ride from Carhaix to Cap Frehel — the Isle of Man rider could be called upon to show more versatility.
Much like Monday’s third stage, won by American Tyler Farrar, the finale to stage five could prove a challenge for the sprinters’ teams — like Cavendish’s HTC-Highroad.
Four kilometres from the finish the peloton will negotiate a small climb which, as on stage three, is likely to prompt one or two attacks from the front of the peloton.
With three kilometres still to race, there is still plenty of time for the sprinters to get their house in order on the slight downhill section which leads to the red flag signalling the final kilometre. From there, the road rises 14 metres in 1km to the finish line. Although considered only a ‘false flat’, some sprinters prefer flatter terrain.
Cavendish’s Australian teammate Mark Renshaw, who is normally his last lead-out man before the final dash for the finish line, believes the race hasn’t seen the last of Cavendish yet. The Manxman did not claim the first of his five stage wins last year until stage five, and the Australian said: “It’s starting to pan out a little bit like last year, and people might be starting to doubt us.
“But hopefully we can come back out and win five stages like Cav did last year.” Before the finale, the teams intent on making sure victory isn’t decided by a bunch sprint will have a chance to play their cards when the peloton takes the coast roads for the final 70km.
On the way crosswinds are a near certainty as the peloton cuts through Yffiniac — the native village of France’s last champion, five-time winner Bernard Hinault.
“There is a risk of winds and eventually splits in the peloton,” warned the race’s director of competition, Jean-Francois Pescheux.
