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Montpellier
39 km
Tuesday 7 July
The comeback is more complete now. The Boss is back; Lance and his team have won the fourth stage but Cancellara will hold onto the yellow jersey by a fraction of a second. The top five in stage four is:
1. Astana - 39km in 46’29.320
2. Garmin-Slipstream - at 18"
3. Saxo Bank - at 40"
4. Liquigas - at 58"
5. Team Columbia-HTC - at 59"
The provisional results indicate that Fabian Cancellara will keep his yellow jersey by a fraction of a second. This is judged on a count-back from the results of the opening time trial.
The Astana team is 40" ahead of Saxo Bank. That’s the time that Armstrong had to make up to take the yellow jersey. We await confirmation on who is in the yellow jersey but whoever it is, it’s going to be a fraction of a second...
The Astana team has won the fourth stage. This is a double triumph as Lance is about to receive his 84th yellow jersey in the Tour de France.
It seems certain that Astana will win the stage. They have to be faster than 46’47" set by Garmind and in the final kilometer it’s all going to plan.
There are now six riders in the Astana group that’s less than 2km from the finish as Popovych has peeled off after doing a strong turn.
The Astana team is 3km from the finish of the stage. If the seven riders can maintain their current pace, then Armstrong will end the stage in the yellow jersey. He has already worn the leader’s colors for 83 days in the Tour de France but his comeback is about to become a little bit more interesting as he appears destined to not only win the stage but take the overall lead.
Mark Cavendish is leading his team across the line for the fourth best time. Columbia are 41" behind Garmin today.
At the 30.5km mark, the Astana team is 41" ahead of Saxo Bank. This means that Armstrong is going to end the stage in the yellow jersey... if, of course, he can continue to maintain the pace they’ve set for three-quarters of the fourth stage.
The Astana team is now composed of seven. They have the fastest time at the 19.5km mark and are about to arrive at the 30.5km. At the current rate, we can expect to see Armstrong in the yellow jersey at the end of the stage.
Cancellara has led his team over the line for a time that’s 22" behind that set by Garmin.
There are now eight men in the Saxo Bank line-up. It seems inevitable now that the yellow jersey will go to another rider after the fourth stage.
The Astana team is 38" faster than Saxo Bank at the 19.5km mark. This means that, for the moment, Cancellara is still the overall leader but he began the day with an advantage of 40" on the American...
Rast dropped out of the Astana line-up in the first 10km and now Muravyev has dropped out of the pace-line. The Kazakh team has set the fastest time at the 19.5km mark, beating Garmin time by 23".
At this stage, the Saxo Bank team looks like being one of the teams - if not the only one - to finish with nine riders. Cancellara and his colleagues have the third fastest time at the 19.5km mark but remain all together.
At the third check Garmin is 31" faster than Liquigas. At this stage, the American team is on track to achieve their big objective of a victory in the fourth stage. It was third-fastest at the 10km mark, first at 19.5km and currently leads at the 30.5km mark.
The Astana team is looking like it could help Armstrong take over the lead in the general classification. If his team finishes 40" ahead of Cancellara, then Lance will be back in the yellow jersey after today. The Texan has just done a long turn of pace after passing the 10km check.
The Columbia team was seventh fastest at the 10km mark. It was 23" behind the time set by Caisse d’Epargne.
There are now eight riders in the Astan group that has reached the first check in the same time as Garmin, 7" behind Caisse d’Epargne.
Cancellara’s group is 15" slower than Garmin at the 19.5km mark. This is good enough to put the Saxo Bank team into third at the third check.
The Garmin team has the fastest time at the second check. They are less than 15km from the finish and down to five riders. Farrar and Pate peeled off from the paceline before the 10km mark. It seems like a deliberate strategy to have the workers put in everything they could early and then make it to the finish... while the five specialists - Wiggins, Vande Velde, Millar, Zabriskie and possibly Hesjedal - power through in the hope of setting the fastest time.
Cancellara’s yellow jersey is under threat today. At the first check, the Saxo Bank was 19" slower than Caisse d’Epargne. Now the yellow jersey can be seen at the front of the pack. He’s intent on doing all he can to defend the overall lead but Martin and Armstrong are yet to arrive at the 10km mark so we won’t know how Cancellara is going against the riders who began the stage ranked second and third.
At the second time check, Garmin is 11" ahead of the time set by Liquigas.
At the finish, the Liquigas team’s time is 47’27" which is 25" better than Katusha.
The Astana team has begun the TTT. Contador is in his Spanish champion’s colors and Popovych has gone straight to the front of this elite nine-man pack.
The Garmin team has lost two of its men before the 15km mark. Danny Pate has also fallen behind the team that currently has the second best time at the first check.
The Garmin team has the second best time at the 10km mark. It is 7" behind Caisse d’Epargne and already Tyler Farrar has been dropped by his team-mates.
Could this be the day that Tony Martin has been waiting for? He is ranked second overall after three stages of the Tour de France and his team has won the previous two stages. The German must believe it possible to take the ’maillot jaune’ today. If his team finishes 33" ahead of the Saxo Bank squad then he’ll squad his white jersey for a yellow one.
The yellow jersey is racing; which means there are just two more teams to start the stage. Currently Cancellara’s Saxo Bank team is yet to reach a time check but he appears comfortable and is sitting third from last in the nine-man line-up.
At the 19.5km mark, Liquigas has the best time so far. It is eight seconds faster than Caisse d’Epargne.
Silence-Lotto has split in the run-in to the finish. Cadel Evans did a big turn of pace that only Sebastian Lang could follow. The rest of the squad rolled in about 50 meters later. They lost 1’12" to Katusha.
Liquigas has beaten the time of Cervelo at the first time check. The Italian team is 12" behind the time set by Caisse d’Epargne at the 10km mark.
Bingen Fernandez of the Cofidis team almost crashed in the same place as Menchov and Ballan. He ran into the barriers but didn’t fall off his bike.
At the third check, the Silence-Lotto team is 1’05" slower than the standard set by Katusha.
At the first check, the Milram team is already down to eight riders (Wrolich was dropped) and it is 1’02" behind the time set by Caisse d’Epargne.
At the first check, the Cervelo team has lost just 30" to Caisse d’Epargne.
One of the riders that had lost contact with the Silence-Lotto team has caught up with his colleagues before the 19.5km mark. The team has posted a time of 27’14", 1’04" behind the best time of the day so far at the 2nd check.
Now Johan Vansummeren has been dropped by the Silence-Lotto team. There are now just six men in the line-up with Cadel Evans.
Staf Scheirlinckx has also been dropped by the Silence-Lotto squad. Added to the fall of Van Den Broek, it means there are now just seven in the line-up for Cadel Evans.
With five teams home, Katusha still has the best time. The Bbox team has just arrived with a deficit of 3’18" to the Russian squad.
After his crash, Van den Broek has failed to catch up to his team-mates. Silence-Lotto has just posted the fourth best time at the 10km mark, 48" slower than Caisse d’Epargne.
The defending champion of the Tour de France, Carlos Sastre has just begun the team time trial. Cervelo is the 12th team to begin the 39km stage.
“As a general rule for these sort of stages, you put the stronger guys on the front to do longer turns,” said the directeur sportif of Garmin-Slipstream, Matt White. “That means we’ll have Bradley and Christian and the Daves (Millar and Zabriskie) doing a lot of the work today but everyone knows what they’ve got to do.
“It is slippery out there, but that’s typical of a circuit that has sections in a city. No one has been able to get a real understanding of the course in full race conditions because the road was only closed about half an hour before the race. But we have done plenty of rides on the circuit,” said the Australian DS. “We were here last Tuesday and Wednesday and we’ve got a good understand of what we have to do.”
Can Garmin-Slipstream win the stage? “We’re certainly going to try. I think we’re one of four teams that has a good chance today. The others are Columbia, Astana and Saxo Bank…”
There are only five together in the Lampre team as it arrives at the finish. The time for the Italian squad was 49’53", 2’01" behind Katusha. This is the slowest time of the day so far.
The only team with eight riders at the start of the TTT is Quickstep. This is the next team to start the race in Montpellier. It includes the Belgian TT champion Stijn Devolder.
Van den Broek quickly remounted his bike but he’s got a hard chase ahead of him if he’s to catch up with his team-mates.
Jurgen van den Broeck, one of the key workers for Cadel Evans, has fallen early in the time trial. He just touched the wheel of the rider in front of him and Greg van Avermaet was able to just avoid crashing into him.
As Rabobank reach the finish, the Silence-Lotto leave the start. Menchov’s team was 57" slower than Katusha.
At the 30.5km mark, the Rabobank team lost another one of its riders. There are now seven in the group of Menchov which is 52" behind Katusha at the same point.
Many teams have done reconnaissance rides over the course prior to the beginning of the Tour de France. For Silence-Lotto, these sessions came early in the year, again in June and again this morning. Cadel Evans contacted LeTour.fr to give his appraisal earlier today. “The TTT course is not that technical,” said the Australian, “but we need to be cautious, of course. The wind will be a problem.
“The logistics of the race are rather complicated this year and we didn’t get to ride the course as much as we could have liked this morning. We were in traffic for four hours and only got to do one lap… and, ideally, it would have been good to go over it at least once more.
“The other guys on the team are all good. All a little bit nervous for this one, but there are no worries.”
After the crash by four riders, all nine Bbox team members are back together again. They reached the 19.5km mark in 28’14" - 2’05" slower than the best time. The crashes have cost them dearly. It seems as though Pierre Rolland has fallen again and this time it’s unlikely he’ll be able to rejoin his team.
The second team to start was Katusha. It is six seconds faster than the effort by Caisse d’Epargne.
Three of the four riders who crashed from the BBox team were Bonnet, Rolland and Arashiro. They have already started riding again but it remains to be seen if all them can catch up with their team-mates.
Four riders from the BBox team have crashed on a right turn out of the city.
The Rabobank rider who was awarded the ’Combative’ prize in stage two, Stef Clement, has been dropped by his Rabobank team.
There were eight men in the Caisse d’Epargne team at the finish. They covered the course at an average of 48.8km/h. The time at the finish was 47’58".
At the 19.5km mark, the Rabobank team is 51" behind Caisse d’Epargne. The Dutch team’s average speed was 43.3km/h while the Spaniards set 44.7km/h at the second check.
The time for the team is taken from the fifth rider over the line.
The Rabobank team has just survived a narrow section of road with strong sidewinds without too much trouble. There are still nine in the line-up but only the man at the front is tucking down into the aerobars. The others had been following with their hands on the hoods instead. But that approach was just when the roads were relatively dangerous.
The team prize is calculated in the time of the best three riders from each squad in each stage. Today there is a real benefit in being high up this classification as the starting order for the team time trial is the reverse of the order in the rankings (ie. the team that’s last, Caisse d’Epargne, will start the 39km race first while Astana, which leads the team prize after three stages, will start last).
Skil-Shimano won the team rankings yesterday. Together with Columbia-HTC, Cofidis and Astana, the wild-card invitees had three in the front group of stage three.
In the general classification for teams, Astana’s advantage over Columbia is 1’46” while Saxo Bank is at 1’53” and Garmin-Slipstream is fourth at 2’47”.
At the 19.5km mark, the Katusha team lost 10" to Caisse d’Epargne but the Russian squad is down to eight men. We cannot yet confirm which rider has been dropped.
The Caisse d’Epargne team has put 53" into Rabobank in just 10km. Of course the Spanish team suffered no falls like Rabobank... but it’s a big loss already for the Giro d’Italia champion Menchov.
The BBox Bouygues Telecom team has just started the stage. LeTour.fr contacted Didier Rous, the directeur sportif to get his thoughts on the team time trial today. “We will surely try to do our best and the take this stage seriously,” said Rous, “but the first thing I’ll tell the riders is to be vigilant because the course is rather complicated and there are several places which are dangerous and crashes are possible.
“We are aware that this evening we will lose time but it’s not too vital for us as our goal is not for the general classification. The focus remains to try and win stages.”
At the 19.5km mark, the Caisse d’Epargne has posted an average speed of 44.7km/h.
Ballan has crashed on the same turn as Menchov did. He too has quickly remounted his bike and now Loosli is waiting for the fallen rider and helping him back into the Lampre posse.
At the first intermediate check, Katusha’s time is nine-seconds slower than Caisse d’Epargne.
Menchov is making up for his error and is now setting the pace for his Rabobank team. His crash was around the 1km mark of the stage and he is showing no sign of being too injured.
The rider ranked second overall is the leader of the youth classification after three days of racing. Tony Martin (THR) was just one second behind Roman Kreuziger before yesterday’s stage but the Czech was one of 151 to miss the important move on the approach to La Grande-Motte. This means that the Liquigas rider slipped to second in the race for the white jersey, 40” behind the German.
Martin and four others who are eligible for the youth classification finished in the front group in stage three, including the winner Mark Cavendish who is ranked 29th in the best young rider category.
Arnaud Coyot was almost dropped by his Caisse d’Epargne team but he has been able to recover the lost ground and there are nine riders together again.
The fallen rider, Denis Menchov, is back on his bike and has already rejoined his team-mates. It was a scene reminiscent of the final stage of the Giro d’Italia when he crashed almost within sight of the finish line. Back then, however, it was on a straight stretch of road this time it was on a turn. Still, the service from his mechanic was extremely quick again and he lost little time.
Denis Menchov of the Rabobank team is the first casualty of the TTT. He has crashed on a left turn early in their race. He was in second position when he misjudged the turn and crashed into the barriers.
The first team has covered the first 10km in 12’35".
The polka-dot jersey remains on the shoulders of the only Finnish rider in the Tour, Jussi Veikkanen (FDJ). He has nine points – all of which were collected during his escape with three other riders in stage two. Next in rankings for the climbing classification are Tony Martin (THR) and one of yesterday’s attackers, Koen De Kort (SKS) who led over the two climbs on the road between Marseille and La Grande-Motte. Both riders in second and third have six points, but Martin is ranked second as he took points on the only cat-3 climb of the race so far (while De Kort’s acquisition was on cat-4 ascents).
The Caisse d’Epargne team is all together after nine kilometers of racing. They are working their way through the roundabout which are a feature of the early part of the course and doing so in good formation. Each rider has a disc wheel on the rear of his Pinarello TT bike. Coyot has been at the back for several minutes.
The second team to start is Katusha. The squad of Vladimir Karpets and Filippo Pozzato has not shown themselves much in the first three stages of the 2009 Tour. The best result in a stage was for Trussov who was 11th in the second stage. Karpets is the highest ranked of this squad, he’s 27th overall, 1’48" behind Cancellara.
With two successive stage wins, Mark Cavendish (THR) has amassed 70 points in the sprinters’ category. He will wear the green jersey again today. The runner-up in stage three, Thor Hushovd (CTT) is ranked second in the points classification with 54 points while the rider who was voted as the most aggressive in the third stage, Samuel Dumoulin (COF) is third with 36pts. Gained more points with his sixth place in La Grande-Motte and is fourth with 35pts.
There was a team time trial in the Tour Mediterranean in February this year between Narbonne and Gruissans. The winners of the 25km second stage was Caisse d’Epargne. They beat Garmin by two seconds.
The team of the 2006 Tour champion Oscar Pereiro Sio has just rolled down the start ramp and is now racing the team time trial. Caisse d’Epargne’s best ranked rider on general classification after three stages is Luis Pasamontes who is 46th overall, 2’07" behind Fabian Cancellara.
During his career, Fabian Cancellara has spent a total of 11 days wearing the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. The Swiss road race champion from this year – and Olympic TT champion from 2008, and world TT champion from 2006 and 2007 – continues to lead the general classification. He was one of 27 riders to make a selection that formed with 30km to go in stage three and finished sixth in the sprint. He actually increased his lead in the overall rankings, although the cast of characters behind him has changed. Alberto Contador (AST) slipped from second to fourth (from 18” behind to 59”) while Tony Martin (THR) moved up from eighth to second, 33” behind Cancellara.
Lance Armstrong also benefited from the split in the peloton on the windy road to La Grande-Motte yesterday. He is still 40” shy of the yellow jersey but moved up the rankings from 10th to third overall.
There will be seven minutes between the start of each time in the fourth stage. The order is the reverse of the standings in the team rankings meaning Astana will be the last to start. The team of Alberto Contador is due to begin the 39km race at 4.43pm.
The fourth stage of the Tour de France’s 2009 edition is a team time trial that starts and finishes in Montpellier. It is a 39km course that heads out of the capital Languedoc Roussillon region in a north westerly direction and into the wind before looping around to a southerly trajectory and an fast finale back to finish at the Yves du Manoir rugby stadium.
The first team to start is Caisse d’Epargne. Its scheduled start time is 2.30pm.
