Tour de Suisse 2013: Stage 4

Hello and welcome to Cyclingnews' live coverage from the Tour de Suisse. Today it's stage 4, 161km from Innertkirchen to Buochs.

No first category climbs today but the peloton still have to tackle two second cat climbs, and a fourth cat thrown in for good measure.

140km remaining from 161km

With 140km to race we have three riders up the road in a break: Jens Voigt (RadioShack) +20:39, Robert Vrecer (Euskaltel-Euskadi) +27:42, Olivier Kaisen (Lotto) +34:49
 

The three leaders have an advantage of 4'15 over the peloton, which has BMC on the front.

Looking at the profile of the stage it's likely we'll see a bunch sprint this afternoon. There's a tricky 90 degree corner inside the finale but the sprinters' teams should come out on top today.

After yesterday's exploits in the mountains Peter Sagan will start as the favourite, assuming it comes down to a sprint, but there are a number of fast finishers in the race.

Gilbert, Breschel and Boonen are here and were in the break yesterday but there's also Degenkolb, Kristoff, Demare, Farrar Goss and Renshaw too.

The break are now on the lower slopes of the second category climb of Schwanden. It's 7.3km in length with an average gradient of 6.7 per cent. There are pitches just over 10 per cent but the break should be able to establish a bigger lead on the climb. The gap has come down slightly in the last few minutes and currently stands at 4'01.

The gap has actually started to come down and is currently at 3'38.

Away from the race Johan Bruyneel has given his first interview in a while. There's nothing revealing but he has talked about why he can't talk. To make sense of that, click here.

Ivan Basso has confirmed that he'll return to racing at the Italian nationals which take place in a couple of weeks.

Pierre Rolland has been forced to hand back his racing licence for 8 days after a health control at the Dauphine, and Matt White has returned to work at ORICA GreenEdge after he stepped down from the team last year.

The break have crested the top of the climb with the peloton following them over at 3'26. The results from the climb are as follow:

1 Vrecer (EUS) 8 points.
2 Kaisen (LTB) 6
3 Voigt (RLT) 4
4 Wyss (IAM) 2

Breaking news: The USA Pro Challenge has announced their teams line up: click here for the news.

Following the descent the gap has been reduced to 3'08 with the sprinters' teams keeping the pace at the front of the bunch under their control. You'd expect a little bit more room from the peloton but they're not taking any chances today.

97km remaining from 161km

Less than 100 km to race, with the gap to the peloton holding at around the 3 minute mark.

Voigt and his companions continue to work well together and they've managed to draw out another 30 seconds to bring the gap up to 3'40 but with over 80km to go it's going to be near impossible for them to survive.

The leaders now pass through the feedzone, the peloton holding the gap at 3'40.

There are two intermediate sprints either side of the two remaining climbs. The first should fall to the break but there's every chance we'll see counter attacks on the next  climb.

Here's where we stand in the KOM competition:

1 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 12 pts
2 Mathias Frank (Swi) BMC Racing Team 8
3 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 8
4 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ 6
5 Peter Sagan (Svk) Cannondale Pro Cycling 6
6 Philippe Gilbert (Bel) BMC Racing Team 5

While the top ten looks like this:

1 Mathias Frank (Swi) BMC Racing Team 7:39:38
2 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:00:23
3 Rui Alberto Faria da Costa (Por) Movistar Team 0:00:35
4 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 0:00:53
5 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ 0:00:57
6 Bauke Mollema (Ned) Blanco Pro Cycling Team 0:01:08
7 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp 0:01:23
8 Tanel Kangert (Est) Astana Pro Team 0:01:26
9 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:28
10 Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:01:39

The three leaders have 64km to go and their gap has dropped to just under three minutes.

Kaisen takes a turn on the front and then swings off to allow Voigt through. The Lotto rider already looks tired but perhaps it's more a sense of dejection with the gap never going out to more than 4'15 today.

Frank is being looked after by his team, including Gilbert. At the back of the bunch Terpstra is riding with a gaggle of IAM Cycling riders.

Andy Schleck and Roman Kreuziger are sitting in the bunch and catching up but it's now Cannondale who are setting the pace for Sagan on the front of the bunch. They'll want to soften up the field,  drop a bunch of sprinters on the next two climbs and then see Sagan seal the sprint.

FDJ are also joining the pace setting duties on the front of the bunch bit it's still Cannondale who dominate the front of the peloton. BMC are sitting just behind Sagan and his teammates.

53km remaining from 161km

53km to go and the gap continues to drop, and it's now down to 2'21.

44km remaining from 161km

The peloton are holding the break at 2'25. Luis Leon Sanchez is at the back of the peloton after a rear puncture.

QuickStep have now moved to the front of the peloton are controlling the pace.

Kaisen has now been dropped by the break so it's just Voigt and Vrecer as they tackle the second category climb.

Both riders look fairly evenly matched as the peloton now start the climb. Luis Leon Sanchez makes contact with the peloton just as the gap to the break drops to 2'08.

Gaps are starting to appear in the bunch although the pace isn't breakneck at the moment. Up ahead Voigt is doing the majority of the work.

The pace is now starting to hot up on the climb with IAM Cycling setting the pace with BMC,

The two leaders are now on the descent of the climb. They've actually not lost any time on the climb with the bunch 2'10 down.

IAM Cycling leading the peloton on the descent, clearly trying to set something up for either the last climb or a sprint with Haussler.

36km remaining from 161km

Movistar have brought Rui Costa to the front, the defending champion looking strong this year.

Frank has moved up to fourth wheel in the bunch, clearly trying to keep out of trouble on the descent but all the pressure is coming from IAM Cycling.

The bunch are over the descent and the pace has eased off. Frank can even share a joke with the IAM Cycling riders who were trying to put him under pressure.

29km remaining from 161km

Boonen is up for this one. He has his men on the front of the bunch and Steegmans looks like the candidate to lead him out in the finish. Sagan for now is right on Boonen's wheel.

Goss is moving up through the bunch. The Australian could do with a win in this race.

The twoleaders, well, they still have 2 minutes. They're chances are still slim but they're both giving it everything at the moment.

They're on the final climb of the stage, a fourth cat, with Cannondale now setting the pace for Sagan. They'll want to keep things compact but also lose some of the other sprinters.

25km remaining from 161km

25km to go and the gap is now at 1'49.

21km to go and the gap is down to 1'26 with the sprinters teams all starting to push the pace at the front of the bunch. Boonen, Degenkolb, Sagan, all three are here and confident of winning given that their teams are doing so much work

The two leaders have just over a minute with QuickStep on the front of the bunch. The Belgian team will have to watch out because they're already down to just four riders, with Boonen just a little further back.

The gap is now under a minute and despite their best efforts the two leaders simply never had a big enough margin. Voigt heads under the 15km to go banner with a lead of 51 seconds.

11km remaining from 161km

11km to go and the gap is now down to just 36 seconds.

8km remaining from 161km

8km to go and the gap is still at 30 seconds. This could be a lot closer.

The break has 25 seconds and Voigt has attacked.

The German is clear and he has a gap.

The German has just 4km to and he has a gap of 20 seconds.

Voigt is looking back and he has just 8 seconds. It's all over for him.

Lotto and Sky are on the front.

Inside the final km and it's chaos with no one team able to assert control.

They take the final corner.

Demare takes it.

He came through that final 90 degree corner with 200 meters to go in the perfect position.

It was a great move from Demare. He took the final corner at full speed, coming from way back and used that momentum to hit the front with less than 200 to go. Goss tried to respond and managed to close on the FDJ rider but he simply ran out of road.

Farrar was third and Degenkolb fourth.

Boonen and Sagan were too far back coming into the final bend but that move from Demare was perfect, skating through the inside of the sprinters as he took that final corner.

No changes in the top five on GC.

1 Arnaud Demare (Fra) FDJ 4:08:23
2 Matthew Harley Goss (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 0:00:00
3 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin-Sharp 0:00:00
4 John Degenkolb (Ger) Team Argos-Shimano 0:00:00
5 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha 0:00:00
6 Heinrich Haussler (Aus) IAM Cycling 0:00:00
7 Peter Sagan (Svk) Cannondale Pro Cycling 0:00:00
8 Jens Debusschere (Bel) Lotto Belisol 0:00:00
9 Davide Cimolai (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:00:00
10 Jacopo Guarnieri (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:00:00

General classification after stage 4
1 Mathias Frank (Swi) BMC Racing Team 11:48:01
2 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Team Saxo-Tinkoff 0:00:23
3 Rui Alberto Faria da Costa (Por) Movistar Team 0:00:35
4 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 0:00:53
5 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ 0:00:57
6 Bauke Mollema (Ned) Blanco Pro Cycling Team 0:01:08
7 Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin-Sharp 0:01:23
8 Tanel Kangert (Est) Astana Pro Team 0:01:26
9 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:28
10 Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:01:39
 

Thanks for joining us today for stage 4 of the Tour de Suisse. We'll be back tomorrow for more live coverage from the race.