Tour de France 2023, Stage 4 LIVE: Latest updates from the 182km route set for the sprint finish

The peloton started rolling in neutral from Dax. It was a fairly smooth start in terms of accidents – Enrique Mass and Richard Carapaz were unable to start stage two after a crash on opening day as both Movistar and EF Education-EasyPost lost the GC guys, but there are again 174 riders in the starting line for the day .

It is, of course, the Fourth of July, which might get Powless and the five other American riders excited in the field. I don’t expect any of them to be particularly prominent when the pointed end of the race comes in, with none of the particularly competitive American six-six going unnoticed for their fast ends, but Quinn Simmons (Liddell Trek) wears the stars and stripes and The peloton has surprised the motorsport track already this year...

Here’s a reminder of the full list of those wearing the shirt today. Laurent Pichon (Arkea-Samsic) gets the numbers colored after winning the Stage 4 Combat Award.

yellow: Simon Yates (UAE Emirates Team)

white: Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates Team)

green: Victor Lafay (Cofidis)

Dripper: Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost)

There is only one King of the Mountains showing point today, so I don’t expect Nelson Pauls to repeat his move from yesterday and hit the road hoping to increase his lead in the polka-dot jersey chase. He’s safe on his shoulders for at least two more days.

It looks like a classic day for some of France’s minor teams to fill the breakaway, but there are slightly fewer candidates for the kind of exposure-reliant exercise in the mess than usual this year. Both UCI ProTour entrants (TotalEnergies and Lotto-Dstny) are here hoping to compete on the semi-regular stage, and recent outfit in particular, while Uno-X and Israel-Premier Tech both arrive with strong units hoping to make the most of their cards. their allowance.

“Yeah, it was good,” said the Astana runner yesterday. “Of course we want to win – sixth is sixth, but I was happy with my legs, how the boys were. There are a lot of chances and we’ll be positive going forward from that. I’m really happy.”

We’ll try again today. The final straight is better for me, you can feel the pedals under you.

“These things I can kind of enjoy. Once I’m on the bike, I get on the bike and do the job. I don’t feel like there’s pressure on me. I’m going to go and do my best and see what happens.”

A little strangely, the Tour de France won’t see another coastline for the remainder of this year’s race – we’re now indoors all the way to Paris. Here’s our handy guide to every stage on Route 2023, with all the sorts of test climbs to come when the peloton roams the Pyrenees, the Massif Central and the Alps.

There was a fair amount of criticism overnight about the finish in Bayonne yesterday, as that bend inside the final few hundred meters almost caused a crash as Wout van Aert launched his sprint to the inside of Jasper Philipsen. Nor did the protruding bulkhead particularly help matters.

Among those who questioned the safety of the competition was Fabio Jacobsen, who came home fourth. Jacobsen was fortunate to have survived a truly horrific crash at the Tour de Pologne in 2020 and wonders if enough progress has been made to keep the sprinters safe.

“I think we (the riders) and the tour operators need to look at the parks and finish like this,” he said. The Soudal-QuickStep rider told Cycling News. “We’ve all seen in the past what that can do, when a rider goes from side to side. If you create a chicane, the riders want to go the shortest way, left to right. It’s definitely not the nicest end of the Tour.

“We can have long kilometers to finish, just don’t use an incline, don’t use a left, a right in the last five hundred metres.”

Philipsen’s new, largely gratuitous moniker wasn’t the only weird thing about Netflix Tour de France: Unchained The series, which while entertaining enough, didn’t quite hit the mark, as Lawrence Ostlere Explain.

We still have some time before the action starts today – I expect things to be nice again, although there may be more fighting to break away after that small group of two comfortably escaped yesterday.

And speaking of yesterday, it was Jasper Philipsen’s second straight win in a Tour, as the Belgian followed up on his victory on the Champs-Elysees from last year. The Alpecin-Deceuninck lead out looked to be in good working order, Mathieu van der Poel a lively chariot but Søren Krag Andersen and Ramon Sinkeldam made some hand charges as well. So much for Jasper Calamity…