Tour de France: Kittel wins stage 4 in Limoges

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The margin for error at this Tour de France seems to grow tighter by the day. The proof is in the photo finish stills. For the second day running, the commissaires had to review the images before designating a winner, as Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) edged out Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) by mere millimetres to win stage 4 in Limoges.

In Angers on Monday, Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) and André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) had each punched the air in celebration on crossing the line, but the margins were so tight here that neither Kittel nor Coquard dared the claim the victory for himself.

The jury’s deliberations barely lasted a minute but the wait must have seemed interminable for Kittel, who sat on the tarmac past the finish line, only daring to break into a smile once his soigneur had slapped him on the shoulders in congratulations.

On rising gingerly to his feet, Kittel wiped a tear from his eyes, and his voice was still raw as he spoke beneath the podium. After placing second to Cavendish on stage 1 and then making a hash of his sprint in Angers, the pressure was beginning to mount on Kittel. Victory in Limoges – his 9th Tour de France stage in total, but his first since 2014 – was something of a release.

"I feel very emotional right now – it feels like my first stage win again. I’m super happy. I’m very proud because the team was really fighting for this win," Kittel said. "Things went wrong in the last days and I’m so happy to be back in the Tour and to win a stage like this. I can’t believe it."

The finishing straight pitched upwards for 700 metres and, at least in theory, was less suited to Kittel than the previous two sprint finishes. For Alexander Kristoff (Katusha), by contrast, the terrain presented a considerable opportunity, and there was little surprise when his teammate Jacopo Guarnieri took over from Lotto Soudal in the final kilometre and led out the sprint.

Kittel, meanwhile, bided his time, and though he had team Fabio Sabatini on hand, he opted to stay on the wheel of Greipel, before unleashing a ferocious sprint effort inside the final 200 metres. Neither Greipel nor the yellow jersey Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) could get on terms with the German and he looked to be cruising to a stage win, only for Coquard to emerge from leftfield within sight of the line.

His shoulders rocking as he tried to keep his huge gear turning over, Coquard was visibly straining yet still making up ground on the smoother Kittel. In the final ten metres, Coquard could scarcely hold a straight line and almost touched shoulders with Kittel as they passed beneath the finish banner.

Sitting with his legs crossed past the finish line, Coquard seemed lost in prayer as he waited for white smoke from the commissaires. The verdict that eventually emanated from their cloister near the podium was not a positive one.

"I really believed in my chances. I could see I was making it back but it was not enough," Coquard said of his sprint. "I'm very disappointed but I must not give up. There are still lots of chances left. There is no mistake in the sprints, the strongest rider wins. I was never as close to victory but I haven't won yet. I'm young but I'm a winner. I have temperament and I want to win this year on the Tour."

Sagan placed third on the stage to keep the yellow jersey, 12 seconds ahead of Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) and 14 up on Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). Tour debutant Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) took fourth in front of Kristoff, while Cavendish placed 8th and Greipel faded to 18th.

"I can’t complain, I’m happy, I’m still in yellow, I was third, so more points for the green jersey, it’s good,"Sagan said. "It was nearly 250km with the neutral zone but it wasn’t difficult thanks to the tailwind – it was fine today."

More on this story:

• Tour de France stage 4 finish line quotes

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Diamond legs

At 237.5 kilometres, this was the longest of the race and the second mammoth stage in succession, through it was run off at a rather brisker pace than Monday’s leg to Angers. Understandably, given the sheer distance, there wasn’t the usual flurry of willing attackers once the flag dropped outsider Saumer, but a four-man move eventually sallied clear after 15 kilometres, and Oliver Naesen (IAM Cycling), Alexis Gougeard (AG2R-La Mondiale), Markel Irizar (Trek-Segafredo) and Andreas Schillinger (Bora-Argon18) would stay clear for much of the day.

The quartet established a maximum advantage of six minutes before Lotto Soudal, Etixx-QuickStep and Dimension Data set about closing the gap as the terrain grew more rugged on the approach to Limoges.

With 20 kilometres to go, the break was down to three riders – Gougeard had sat up – and the gap hovered at 30 seconds, and though Naesen and Irizar put up admirable resistance, they would be swept up with 7 kilometres remaining.

In the intervening period, Thomas Voeckler signalled Coquard and Direct Energie’s ambition by carrying out much of the pace-setting. For much of the fraught finale, meanwhile, it appeared for all the world as though Kittel’s chance had already passed him by. Etixx-QuickStep had been active earlier in the stage in pegging back the break of the day, but the black and blue jerseys were absent from the front of the peloton as it hurtled towards Limoges.

The run-in was difficult to navigate, due as much to the archipelago of traffic islands and roundabouts as the rolling terrain, but Greipel’s Lotto Soudal team finally appeared to have stilled the waters when they hit the front with three kilometres to go.

As Kittel’s teammate Iljo Keisse pointed out afterwards, however, on a finale that ebbed and flowed like this one, every advantage had its disadvantage. "It was the same yesterday, with a small descent and then a climb. There are always teams coming up from behind so it's very difficult for the team on the front to stay there," he pointed out.

With 1,500 metres to go, Greipel was tucked in third place behind two Lotto Soudal teammates, but his red guard hit the front too soon, and they were overrun on the final haul to the line. Instead, it was Kittel who emerged to claim the win in another game of millimetres on this Tour.

"Yesterday our train didn’t work and that was very annoying because Marcel said he had diamond legs," Keisse said. "Today we had to work things perfectly so he could show his diamond legs to the world and win the stage."

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