Key events
20km to go That trio are still out there but I don’t think this move will stick, the gap isn’t growing.
25km to go Veistroffer takes the two king of moutains points and current classification leader Alex Baudin gets the other one. Now then, we have a Kasper Asgreen, Fred Wright and Valentin Paret Peintre off the front of the pelton after their dash for polka dot points. They have 15secs on the bunch and are 22secs behind Veistroffer.
30km to go Today’s only categorised climb is coming up in 5km, will anyone take a flyer and try to win it from there? Come on, live a little.
More on Whoop (they should be paying me/the Guardian for all these mentions) from Fergal Power: “TNT also broadcast mountain bike racing (XC and downhill) and often at an exciting part of the race the commentator will interrupt the analyst who is saying something insightful to yell about the heart rate or strain of a particular competitor. It seems quite forced. I like to imagine there is someone from Whoop sitting in the back of the commentary booth holding a gun…”
That is exactly what is happening, Fergal. I’m sure of it.
31km to go The sprint teams are lining up now and Veistroffer is being reeled in quickly, the Lotto-Intermarché rider’s lead is down to 1min 11secs.
I’m glad the rest of you have strong thoughts about Whoop data too. David Walsh (surely not the main character of The Program?) writes in: “[Whoop data is] right down there with arguments about whether a Victoria Sponge is better than a jam doughnut on a long ride.” Roland Marshall adds: “Couldn’t agree more about Whoop data: it’s like talking about expected goals in football, when what only really matters are the ones that end up in the back of the net. Stuff the Whoop data, I’d rather hear about more riders’ colourful nicknames (such as today’s lone ‘wild boar/sanglier’ out in front).”
Finally Drew Petersen: “As a former Whoop wearer (now Garmin – sorry, corporate sponsors), I want to share one experience. My wife (who, ironically, now has a Whoop herself) teased me mercilessly for the several years I wore one, and called it a Wupfh, in honour of The (US) Office skit.”
While I only recognise one version of The Office, here is said skit:
40km to go XDS Astana’s Max Kanter takes second place in the intermediate sprint, ahead of Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Biniam Girmay (NSN) and then Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech).
44km to go Alpecin–Premier Tech has a train for Philipsen and the others are shuffling into place for this intermediate sprint.
45km to go Veistroffer has a 2min 25secs lead.
48km to go Vingegaard has had a bike change, Davide Piganzoli, another birthday boy, has dropped back to help the Visma–Lease a Bike leader back through the peloton. In 2km we get some action via the intermediate sprint! Veistroffer will nab the 25 points, but who will get the others?
52km to go A lot of Whoop data chat on the broadcast (the brand has a deal with TNT), this might be the wrong audience for this, but is there anything more boring than hearing someone else talk about their sleep/smart watch data? It’s up there with people talking about their fantasy football team or their new washing machine. Drop me an email via the link above if you agree/disagree/want to share your Whoop data.
58km to go I guess the good news about this being quite so drama free now is that we will get the ultimate drama of a bunch sprint later.
Correspondence! “This Tour has been most disorientating,” writes Paul Griffin. “Because it started in the hot south, and because there is currently no yellow jersey contest to speak of (and probably won’t be), it feels like one of those aimless transition stages that normally happen about 15 days into the Tour. In my head I feel certain that Steve Cummings and Thomas Voeckler will fight out a win today. Of course, the mainstream media will quibble that they both retired several years ago, are not on the starting line, and are too old, which just goes to show how lamely evidence-based their journalism model is.” Shorter message from Bronagh McAtasney: ”Ah someone go get poor Baptiste Veistroffer. Don’t make him sail this ship alone.”
76km to go A few muskateers on the side of the road. Now I want to watch the Man in the Iron Mask – a great film about masks – maybe only surpassed by The Mask. Is The Dark Knight Rises about masks or about free climbing? Hard to say.
83km to go Jasper Philipsen’s Alpecin-Premier Tech are taking a turn on the front of the bunch as the camera pans to Phil Bauhaus (Team Bahrain Victorious), who is celebrating his birthday by burning through the French countryside at 35km p/h. Sounds nice.
91km to go A little bit of shade from the trees along the roadside for the riders, but the fields along the route are shades of summery yellow and brown. It’s a pretty scene and the riders are taking a mass wee break again. Watering the plants?
100km to go Highlight of the last 15 minutes? A guy driving a quadbike in a field by the side of the road tried to pop a wheelie and lost his tricolour-waving mate off the back. The flag-waver was up pretty quickly but it looked a sore one.
111km to go We’ve been racing an hour and gone through 45.7km, not a bad lick.
Derrick Belleci emails in: “This seems a bit desperate from Lotto to try and push the pace for De Lie at the finish.” The Bull from Lescheret has already won the nickname game, that’s for sure. Veistroffer has been hung out to dry a bit here, literally given the heat, so I’m not sure this was part of some grand plan from Lotto, especially given De Lie is already out of the race.
117km to go Decathlon are expecting a bit of wind as the race takes a slight change of direction. Will that shake things up?
123km to go If you’ve ever wanted to see a professional athlete go for a wee by the side of the road, tune into the Tour de France now. That’s basically all that’s happening. Veistroffer’s lead is around 2mins 45secs.
128km to go For what it’s worth, my money is figuratively on Jasper Philipsen.
We have email! “I guess Baptiste Veistroffer is hotfooting it,” writes Gary Naylor. Freddy Thurston says: “Veistroffer is a fish out of water – today’s stage hardly seems the plaice for lone sharks.”
Keep them coming, let me know who you think is winning today’s stage.
133km to go At least the marketing bods at the Belgian lottery and Intermarché will be happy. Plenty of airtime for their brands at the start of this stage. I wish there was more to say.
Well, that’s one way to stay cool:
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138km to go With the race going through Castelnau-Magnoac, hometown hero and French rugby union star Antoine Dupont was afforded a little celebration and gets a bit of screentime. Back to cycling, Veistroffer has been given a 3mins 25secs lead. Uno X-Mobility are controlling the front of the peloton.
145km to go Veistroffer is still all by himself and the peloton has given him 2mins 50secs. We get a radio exchange on the TNT broadcast and it seems that none of the teams want to go up the road
153km to go There’s one brave sole off the front at the moment, Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto–Intermarché. The Frenchman looks lonely after heading out on his own.
Kilometre zero
Christian Prudhomme waves the flag and stage five is now properly underway.
Here is the official visual guide to today’s stage:
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And we’re off (neutrally), the peloton rollout from Lannemezan is underway. Next stop kilometre zero.
We’re a rider down from the start of stage four, Jayco’s Kelland O’Brien finished outside the cutoff time. I’ll update you with any more non-starters/withdrawals as they are confirmed.
In Lannemezan we’re going through the pre-stage presentation. Less than 20 minutes until the neutralised start.
William Fotheringham’s guide to stage five
William Fotheringham
Stage five, Wednesday 8 July: Lannemezan to Pau, 158.3km
This stage passes the home of French rugby hero Antoine Dupont after 20km, but the big scrum will come at the finish where the sprinters finally get a target. This year’s mass finishes look likely to be all-Belgian affairs: Jasper Philipsen, with 10 Tour stages to his name, versus Tim Merlier, who has three. Philipsen has the best lead-out – Van der Poel and Kaden Groves – but Merlier’s Soudal team are the most seasoned operators irrespective of who they are dragging to the final 200m and picked up three stages at the Giro with Paul Magnier.
Check out the full guide to all 21 stages here:
Mountains classification standings
After stage four:
1. Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost): 12
2. Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA): 10
3. Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon CMA CGM): 9
4. Raul Garcia Pierna (Movistar Team): 7
5. Marco Frigo (NSN Cycling Team): 5
6. Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe): 5
7. Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG): 4
8. Vlad Van Mechelen (Bahrain Victorious): 4
9. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG): 3
10. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek): 3
Points classification standings
After stage four:
1. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek): 103
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG): 55
3. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike): 44
4. Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek): 42
5. Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 39
6. Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling Team): 39
7. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe): 33
8. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility): 32
9. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech): 30
10. Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM): 28
General classification standings
After stage four:
1. Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility): 13hrs 02min 46secs
2. Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost): +28secs
3. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek): +3mins 50secs
4. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG): +7min 53secs
5. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +7min 53secs
6. Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin-Premier Tech): +8min 6secs
7. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe): +8min 16secs
8. Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG): +8min 17secs
9. Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek): +8min 20secs
10. Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM): +8min 41secs
Preamble
I’m not going to say I could race this stage but the first 20km are basically downhill and then it is mostly a flat run from Lannemezan to Pau, with one category three incline up the Côte de Baleix that comes inside the last 30km – so make of that what you will.
Pau is the third most visited city in the race’s history, trailing only Paris and Bordeaux. The pretty commune has had 77 visits from the Tour, including 64 stage finishes, and has its own museum dedicated to the race on the site of its old velodrome. Plenty of lore, then.
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin–Premier Tech) knows the place well. He won in Pau two years ago and is among the favourites again on day that will almost certainly conclude with a bunch sprint. Yesterday’s winner, Mads Petersen (Lidl-Trek), is also a contender if his efforts in the baking heat of stage four did not take too much out of him. Other names worth backing are Tim Merlier (Soudal–Quick-Step), Olav Kooij (Decathlon-CMA CGM), Birniam Girmay (NSN) and maybe even Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Premier Tech).
Our general classification leader, Torstein Træen (Uno-X Pro), has every chance of staying in yellow today and with a bit of luck tomorrow, on the moutain stage up to Gavarnie-Gèdre, he could still be in possesion of the maillot jaune when Norway take on England in Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final. What momentous day that could be for his country.
The UCI, the sport’s governing body, and the Tour organiser, ASO, initiated emergency measures yesterday to help mitigate the heatwave that beating down on the race this year. With no signs of the heat relenting and Météo-France retaining its orange weather warning, the softened provisions around feed zones look to remain in place.
After claiming the yellow jersey, Træen said: “With this heat, you don’t know how the body is going to react.” It may not be as hot as the 40C-plus conditions experienced on stage four, but the tarmac will be sticky and teams will certainly wary of the hydration levels of their riders. Expect more ice packs inside lyrca.
As we buildup towards the flag drop, let me know your predictions, thoughts and musings on today’s stage via the email link at the top of the page.
