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Morning campers, welcome to stage 4, a glance at Le Tour website first to see whats's in store.
Nothing could really prevent a royal bunched sprint on the 1.5-km final straight in Nancy. At the beginning of the Tour, the hierarchy concerning the sprinters isn’t yet established. Ready to challenge the winner of the first stage, his rivals will consider that the counter is reset to zero: their teams will be focused on keeping control of any breakaway attempt.
And the finish??
So who is in the mix? Off to inrng.com for some insight.
The Contenders: Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) came close on Stage 1 and is the prime pick for today but like Saturday Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) and Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-Quickstep) should come close only by now Groenewegen’s had a crash and Viviani’s got icy treament from his team manager for losing his lead out train. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) will be close as ever and Giacomo Nizzolo was a useful fourth place in Brussels, it’s hard to see him winning but he’s scoring precious UCI points for Dimension Data’s to stay in the World Tour.
And what is going on in yellow?
Yellow story: after yesterday’s visit to Epernay there was no champagne on the podium. France passed a law in 1991 forbidden the use of alcohol and tobacco promotion and so it can’t be used in podium ceremonies. The tradition of podium champagne begin in the 1950s with French Grand Prix which took place in Reims and seeing as the city is the champagne capital of France, the winning driver Fangio was awarded a bottle of bubbly as a prize and a tradition of giving the winner a bottle of champagne started. Fast forward to 1967 and the Le Mans 24 hour race. The winning driver Daniel Sexton Gurney stepped onto the podium and was given his now obligatory bottle of champagne. Accounts differ, one says he was so excited that he just decided to spray the crowd; another suggests that the bottle was not chilled and the driver was overheated, so instead of sipping, he sprayed and creating the modern ceremony we see today. The podium itself is modern invention in the Tour de France, for years the yellow jersey was given to the rider at the finish line as a practical gesture so they could take it with them for the next day before it became instrumentalised.
Text book tour pics from yesterday:
Are we in the sunflower region today? Should be a good day on the bike, through all those fields..
Viviani FTW..
Wanty in the break...
Wanty in the break of course, and Cofidis. Arkea will try to send one up the road but will save their energy for Greipel in the sprint, likewise Direct Energie for Bonifazio. Break will either be HUGE (20+) or just three or four.
Sagan, Nizzolo and Matthews first three across the line
do we know how exposed the route is today ? 23 km/h cross winds forecast.
Text book sprint day so far then.
Text book sprint day so far then.
Unless someone decides to rip it to bits in the crosswind. I suspect it's too early in the race for things like that though knowing that the sprinters will be doing everything possible to bring it to a bunch sprint.
We have sunflowers 🔥☀️🌻🌻🌻🌻
And 2 Wanties in the break.
So all’s well then.
there's a hint of echelon, not quite enough wind and not quite open and exposed enough 🙁 It's enjoyable when a team tries to smash it (even when they fail)!
Ooooft
Ouchie.
P.S. Cheers Lunge (as ever).
We were at the start today and had a great time.
Spent quite a while in and around the team buses.
Loads of photos of some of the big names including JA in yellow.
Will post some up when we get back.
Doffs cap to Team Sky. Riders and staff. They were all polite and were happy to give their time to the fans. One staff member even took copies of G’s book from some star struck young ladies on to the bus to be autographed.
Young Mr Bernal made a point of spending extra time with a Colombian family and they then got interviewed by a TV crew.
Properly made everyone’s day.
Well done boys and girls.