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Lidl-Trek, Alpecin-Deceuninck and Astana Qazaqstan are the teams leading the peloton, with Visma-Lease a Bike and DSM-Firmenich PostNL just behind. They are working for Pedersen, Philipsen, Cavendish, Van Aert and Jakobsen respectively.
The French duo making sure their sponsors are on the TV have been allowed to build a 4:22 gap starts heading west in the direction of Lyon.
Current situation 143km to go
With Groupama-FDJ possibly riding away with the combaitivity prize off the front of the peloton, fellow French team TotalEnergies have sent Mattéo Vercher to chase him down so they are represented.
150km to go
In a non-surprising response, Alpeicn-Deceuninck sniffed any sort of a real move and they’ve closed down the small split. Pace is up at 57kph in the peloton now.
We had all come back together but suddenly, some of the French teams have decided to go racing. Groupama-FDJ have two men moving up the road, with EF, Cofidis and a few other joining them.
More groups have rolled slowlly off the front with just a few rouleurs showing their strength in such an easy start. Tim Declercq (Lidl-Trek) and Kobe Gossens (Intermarché-Wanty) are among them but it still isn’t any sort of committed move.
Some jokes being shown here from World Champion Van der Poel and yellow jersey Pogačar as they both come right to the front to ‘pace’. Such an odd beginning to a stage but this is what happens after the most brutal start to the Tour in years and with a nailed on sprint stage on the menu.
160km to go
Pace is back down to 30kph as the peloton fans out on this wide road. We’re still heading gradually downhill for a lot of this opening phase, with a good chance for a nature break coming now.
Here’s all four classification leaders after stage 4…
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