Demare sprints to stage 4 win in Buochs

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Arnaud Démare (FDJ) showed swiftness of thought to win stage 4 of the Tour of Switzerland with a sprint that married savvy to strength in Buochs. The young Frenchman saw off the challenge of Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) and Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) in the technical finale, while Mathias Frank (BMC) retained his overall lead.

The 161km stage was destined from the outset to end in a bunch sprint, but the sting in the tail came in the form of a deceptive downhill finish and a sharp right-hand bend inside the final 200 metres, elements which caught out a number of more experienced riders but not the 21-year-old Démare.

From his reading of the road book, Démare correctly deduced that the first man into that final corner would emerge victorious and he cleverly nudged his way in ahead of the Orica-GreenEdge sprint train with a shade over 200 metres to go.

From there, Démare was in the box seat, although he had to fight off a fierce comeback from Goss. The Australian closed rapidly on Démare in the finishing straight and would surely have come past him had the line been 50 metres further on.

“It was a delicate finish and it was difficult to interpret,” Démare said afterwards. “It was difficult all day really, but [Yoann] Offredo and [William] Bonnet worked really hard for me. There was a lot of competition because you had guys like Sagan there too, so I’m very happy.”

Peter Sagan’s Cannondale team were prominent near the front of the peloton throughout the afternoon they looked to pilot the Slovak to his second win in as many days, while Tom Boonen’s Omega Pharma-QuickStep team led the pursuit of the last surviving escapee Jens Voigt (RadioShack-Leopard) in the closing kilometres.

Neither Sagan (7th) nor Boonen made any real impact in the sprint, however, while Farrar, John Degenkolb (Argos-Shimano) and Heinrich Haussler (IAM Cycling) also left themselves with too much to do in the finishing straight.

Orica-GreenEdge did succeed in providing Matt Goss with a decent lead-out, but their efforts were foiled by Démare’s invention in the finale. The Beauvais native claimed the inside line on the final corner to sweep in front of them, and then powered his way to his 5th win of the season and perhaps the biggest of his short career.

“I did a lot of the classics and I learnt a lot, and I got some wins too,” said Démare, who claimed a hat-trick of stage wins at the Four Days of Dunkirk. “It was great to get the wins in Dunkirk and the GP de Denain, but to win here in a WorldTour race is just brilliant.”

The stage was animated by a lengthy breakaway featuring Jens Voigt, Olivier Kaisen (Lotto Belisol) and Robert Vrecer (Euskaltel-Euskadi). The trio gained a maximum lead in excess of four minutes, but the odds were stacked against them as the road descended gradually in the final hour of racing.

Voigt’s forcing saw Kaisen dropped on the category two climb of Rengg with 41km to go, and Voigt and Vrecer retained a lead of almost a minute with 15km remaining. By that point, however, Vrecer was beginning to struggle, and Voigt went clear alone 5km from home before he was swept up by the peloton soon afterwards.

There was no change in the overall standings, as Mathias Frank enjoyed a relatively peaceful day in the yellow jersey. The Swiss rider leads 2008 Tour of Switzerland winner Roman Kreuziger (Saxo-Tinkoff) by 23 seconds, while defending champion Rui Costa (Movistar) lies third, 35 seconds down.

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