Tour de France: Demare in pole position for green jersey

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Arnaud Demare in green after stage 4

Stage 4 in the 2017 Tour de France will likely be remembered as the day when world champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) was disqualified. The race jury believed Sagan caused a crash in the sprint that took down Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data). Earlier, another crash took out several riders.

"Two minutes after crossing the line it started sinking in," he said. "I was able to hide it behind my glasses. It's a feeling I didn't have at my other races. It's extraordinary because at the Tour, it reaches the big crowd, not only the cycling fans. Winning at the Tour de France is quite something. The privilege is the bleu-blanc-rouge jersey. I don't realize just yet what it means to lift the arms up while wearing this jersey."

"The crash happened near the front and early on," he said. "These are very dangerous sprints. Jacobo was well positioned, but at 600 metres there was a crash and he went down. I thought it was over. Davide Cimolai moved up well and he replaced him at the last minute. I was able to start the sprint in a good position. I had good legs. The odds were in my favour and I pulled it off. I knew I had the legs to do it. It's extraordinary."

"It's simple. When you're on the limit, you lose a lot of lucidity," he said. "You don't know where you're going. In my first grand tour, the Giro, I was struggling to hold the wheels. I had to undergo the race. Now I'm much stronger and I'm making decisions in the sprint. The freshness and lucidity allows me to take certain risks. That helps a lot to position yourself, to put your wheel where you wouldn't have dared in the past. It allows me to brake later.

"We knew it would be a sprint in which one would have to fight for position," Démare said. "First there was the crash at 600 metres with Guarnieri. I didn't see the other crash. I had to slalom to move up. I passed where it was possible for me. I feared that [Alexander] Kristoff would shut the door on the right, that's why I decided to go on the left. I went much faster. I really wanted to find the space. I didn't predict a crash, but I realized it might become a sprint that could turn out as a very dirty sprint."

For his efforts on the stage, Démare took over the green jersey from Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors). During the previous stages, Démare collected 57 points in the intermediate sprints and at the finishes of stages 2 and 3 in which he respectively finished second and sixth, thanks to his climbing abilities. During the interviews in the mixed zone, Démare still believed that Sagan was the favourite to win the points classification.

"I just heard about it. It changes things a lot. I haven't seen the footage. If there was a mistake then one has to congratulate the jury for having the guts to sanction the world champion, today's cycling star," he said. "It offers me a real opportunity. I haven't seen the footage so I can't talk about the incident. I can only talk about the maillot vert. Today, surely, it offers me a good chance. Still, it's three weeks so that remains a long way to go. I just heard about it. It's not that obvious."