Critérium du Dauphiné: Bouhanni wins stage 4 in Sisteron

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Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) took his second win of the Critérium du Dauphiné, outsprinting his rivals after a chaotic end to stage 4.

As in stage 2, MTN-Qhubeka led out the sprint but it was a freestyling Bouhanni who emerged as the fastest, beating Jonas Vangenechten (IAM Cycling) and Luka Mezgec (Giant-Shimano) into second and third.

Little happened for much of the 228km route from Anneyron to Porte de DrômArdèche, with early escapees Martijn Keizer (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto-Soudal) establishing a large and steady advantage.

But they were caught on the fourth-category Côte de la Marquise just 12km from the finish and the race burst to life. A flurry of attacks on the descent caused chaos and for a while it seemed like the sprinters’ teams might not have their day.

However, things came back together once and for all with 1.5km to go and Bouhanni was able to claim his fifth win of 2015, putting a miserable start to the season further behind him.

There was no change among the main general classification contenders with Rohan Dennis (BMC) keeping his overall race lead, despite the frantic action near the finish that saw Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) put in a small dig ahead of the first mountain test of this year's race to Pra Loup which will be replicated at the Tour de France in July.

"It was really hard. It became very complicated at the end, because of the attacks in the last hill. Without Julien Simon, it would have been impossible for me to win today because Tony Gallopin wouldn't have been caught," commented Bouhanni.  "I'm happy because I've had five or six second places since the beginning of the season, now it's my fifth win. I hope I'll keep going this way."

How it happened

Keizer and Tosh Van der Sande slipped clear after just three kilometres of racing and the peloton seemed content to let them to it.

After eight kilometres, their lead was one minute and only after the 20km mark did it start to stabilise at seven minutes. Despite two climbs in quick succession at around the halfway mark – the third-category Col de Lescou and the fourth-category Col de Pré-Guittard – the duo maintained a lead of 6:30.

As the rain pelted down, there was little action in the peloton on the two climbs. There wasn’t much action after them either as Keizer and Van der Sande held onto a gap of over five minutes until 30km from the finish, despite MTN-Qhubeka appearing on the front, working for Edvald Boasson Hagen.

Only when MTN and Cofidis committed fresh men to the chase did the gap start to tumble. BMC showed continued interest and Etixx-QuickStep also made an appearance, which saw the peloton strung out and the escapees’ advantage slashed to a sole minute by the time they hit the Côte de la Marquise.

As soon as the road kicked uphill, Keizer attacked Van der Sande and got rid of him at the second time of asking, the Belgian slowing dramatically as the efforts of the day took their toll.

Keizer maintained a lead of 20 seconds over the top of the climb and a flurry of attacks came from the bunch on the descent. Cyril Gautier (Europcar), Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal), and Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) were among those to have a dig as things became chaotic, far from ideal for the sprinters’ teams.

Wellens joined up with Keizer and later dropped him, while behind them Alaphilippe and Wilco Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo) gave chase, joined briefly by Vincenzo Nibali.

Tony Martin put in a huge turn to sweep up Wellens but Lotto-Soudal were obviously in an attacking mood as Tony Gallopin then had a pop. Things came back together for MTN to lead into the final kilometre but, as in the second stage, Boasson Hagen wasn’t strong enough to finish it off.

Samuel Dumoulin (Ag2r-La Mondiale) wound his sprint up first and Boasson Hagen came round him, but Bouhanni surged up through and outstripped Megzec, with Vangenechten making up considerable ground with his own late charge.

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