Tour de France Stage 4: Key Takeaways From a Stunning Victory

Breaking down one of the most impressive stage-winning performances in recent Tour de France history

After a few days of casually rolling along the Danish countryside, the Tour de France rocked back to life late on a presumed sprint stage when the Jumbo-Visma team of Wout van Aert laid it all on the line heading into a small climb with 10 kilometers remaining to launch their Belgian superstar off the front. This team effort gave Van Aert the separation he needed to stay ahead of the furiously chasing sprinters behind and grab one of the most impressive solo victories seen in the modern era of the Tour de France. When the peloton rolled in a few seconds behind, Jasper Philipsen, not noticing Van Aert off the front and thinking he had won the stage, took second place, with Jumbo’s Christophe Laporte grabbing the final stage podium spot and soaking up precious Green Jersey points from Peter Sagan.

The win allowed Van Aert to extend his GC lead out to 25-seconds to second-place Yves Lampaert. While there was a moment when it appeared that there could be action amongst the overall contenders when Adam Yates and Jonas Vingegaard briefly marked Van Aert off the front, the pair was dispatched towards the top of the climb and quickly brought to heel by the chasing peloton behind.

Top 3 Stage:
1) Wout van Aert +0
2) Jasper Philipsen +8
3) Christophe Laporte +8

GC Top Five:
1) Wout van Aert +0
2) Yves Lampaert +25
3) Tadej Pogačar +32
4) Mads Pedersen +36
5) Mathieu van der Poel +38

Stage 4 Notebook:

103km: At the intermediate sprint, we see Van Aert sitting up once he sees he is in front of Peter Sagan and lets Fabio Jakobsen go by. This shows that despite Jakobsen currently being in second position, he only considers Sagan his real competition in the classification.

13.3km: The peloton hits crosswinds on the lead-in to the final climb and we can see Jumbo-Visma spending a huge amount of energy to hold position at the front on the windy side of the road. This puts them in an ideal position to be at the front heading into the climb, but it also means they are burning an immense amount of energy doing so. Notice Ineos on the other side of the road as holding position but at a fraction of the energy cost due to their side of the road being sheltered from the wind.

11.4km: Jumbo is towards the front at the base of the climb and has their domestiques go full gas to string out the peloton and set up a Van Aert attack. We can see Roglic, who wasn’t riding with his team and was caught out at the base of the climb, storming up from way back in the pack to join his team.

11.3km: Roglic eventually makes contact with his teammate Jonas Vingegaard, but is on the limit due to the massive effort he made to bridge up. Also, his teammate Christophe Laporte doesn’t notice him there, moves over and accidentally pushes him off Vingegaard’s wheel.

11km: Laporte eventually pulls off, which inadvertently drops Roglic and creates a massive gap to the peloton behind, while up front, Van Aert hits the front after his last domestique pulls off.

11km: The overhead shot shows us that Van Aert/Jumbo’s pace has created an absurd gap to the main group behind.

10.9km: Van Aert increases the already absurdly fast pace and drops Yates and Vingegaard.