Cadel Evans once again proved he is one of the world’s great one-day races with a champion performance to win Stage 4, a 172km classic from Lorient to the Mur-de-Bretagne. Evans tactics on the final climb up the Wall of Brittany were superb. He marked all the main moves before going for home with 150m to go, and was able to hold off defending champion, Alberto Contador, by the barest of margins at the finish. Astana’s Alexander Vinokourov completed the podium in third, while Thor Hushovd managed to hold onto his yellow jersey by a single second, producing an extremely brave display to finish 6th on the stage.
While Hushovd hung on for yellow, the tough final climb up the wall left a number of splits in the peleton, and Evans and Contador were able to gain time on a number of the GC rivals, most importantly Andy Schleck, who finished 8 seconds down. These are not great signs for Andy given that he did no work at all in the closing kilometres, in contrast to the powerful attacks of Evans and Contador. Although he has already built up a buffer over Contador, he cannot afford to throw away valuable seconds on stages such as this. More importantly, the fact he conceded time on such a short climb must throw into question the form he had at this years race. In contrast, his brother Frank (apparently not concerned about looking after Andy) finished with the top 10, and moved up to third overall.
The green jersey battle continues to excite, with Evans moving to within 2 points of Rojas in the sprinters competition. Rojas held on gamely though to finish 12th on the stage, and was the second of the peleton over the line on the days intermediate sprint. That sprint was almost a replica of that on Day 1 with Farrar leading the peleton over the line after Mark Cavendish faded badly in the final 100.
But all the day’s plaudits must go to Evans who took the first Tour de France road stage win of his career, and took a one point lead in the King of the Mountains competition in the process. Evans will still be talked up as a potential overall winner this year, but as I have said before, he is definitely a better one-day specialist than a three week GC man. There is more than enough evidence of that in his performances on Stage 1 (second) and his win here in Stage 3. While he has the ability to put a few seconds into his rivals in the closing stages of races, the fact is he does not have that explosive sustained speed on the big mountain passes to put enough time into his rivals to win a Grand Tour.
Yellow Jersey – Thor Hushovd
Green Jersey - Jose Joaquin Rojas
Polka Dot Jersey – Cadel Evans
White Jersey – Geraint Thomas
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