Tour de France: Viviani gets his win on stage 4 in Nancy

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Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) claimed the first Tour de France stage win of his career on Tuesday, making amends for a barren Giro d'Italia with a well-executed sprint in Nancy on stage 4.

The Italian, whose only other appearance at the Tour came back in 2014, profited from a strong lead-out to get the better of Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) in the bunch sprint, with Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) taking fourth place.

Viviani's victory made it two in two days for Deceuninck-QuickStep, who successfully defended the yellow jersey on the shoulders of stage 3 winner Julian Alaphilippe. With just two minor category-4 climbs on the 213.5km route from Reims to Nancy, it was a quiet day for the overall contenders, with no changes to the general classification.

"It means a lot. Probably I can't believe it still," said Viviani, who has now won stages in all three Grand Tours.

"It was a big goal of the year. We missed the first chance to put the yellow on [on the opening stage], but I think after Julian's phenomenal ride yesterday, it's a moment when you switch on as a team. I was missing this win - I won in the Giro and the Vuelta and now in the Tour de France, and that means a lot to me."

The maillot jaune even played his part in the lead-out, laying the foundations for Michael Morkov and Max Richeze to put Viviani in the box seat. The headwind blowing down the finishing straight demanded patience, and Richeze led all the way to just over 100 metres to go, at which point Viviani opened the taps to finish the job.

Kristoff, who'd been moved up late on by Sven Erik Bystrom and Jasper Philipsen, mounted a strong challenge and ran him close, despite a longer-range effort. Sagan moved out to the right but was unable to threaten and was pipped for the podium by Ewan, who was never able to think about emerging from Viviani's slipstream.

If Deceuninck-QuickStep have become the dominant team in the past couple of days, Jumbo-Visma, who won the opening stage with Mike Teunissen along with the subsequent team time trial, have faded dramatically. After losing yellow yesterday, the Dutch squad were even more out of sorts in Nancy as Teunissen and their lead sprinter Dylan Groenewegen lost each other, each riding on opposite sides of the road. Whether by design or mistake, each sprinted separately, Groenwegen seemingly lacking power as he slumped to fifth, one place ahead of Teunissen.

There will be discussions in the Jumbo-Visma hotel this evening, but Viviani was able to revel in what he described as 'perfect teammwork'. "I lost the wheel of my lead-out on the first stage and I was really disappointed after that. Today I only looked at Max Richeze's wheel. I know Morkov did an amazing job - he's the best to go at the right time and he was perfect today. I saw Kristoff try to anticipate me on the right, and at that same moment, Max opened the door for me. Today we did a perfect job."

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How it unfolded

Race director Christian Prudhomme had barely stopped waving the start flag when the day's breakaway went clear. Wanty-Gobert were keen and fired both Yoann Offredo – who was in the previous day's break – and Frederik Backaert up the road. They were quickly joined by Michael Schar (CCC Team) and the trio settled in for 200 kilometres out front.

Despite the distance of the stage and the small size of the breakaway, the peloton never allowed them much leeway. The gap quickly went out to three minutes but then stabilised, and barely surpassed 3:30 all day. Deceuninck-QuickStep rode for Elia Viviani, and also to protect the newly acquired yellow jersey of Julian Alaphilippe, while Caleb Ewan's Lotto Soudal and Dylan Groenewegen's Jumbo-Visma were the other teams who helped shoulder the responsibility.

The day passed by relatively quietly, though the wind was blowing and the threat of echelons was always lingering in the backs of minds. There was some tension in the bunch, contributing to a few crashes, but nothing serious.

The riders reached the Cote de Rosieres, the first of the two category-4 climbs, with 120 kilometres on the clock, and Schar effortlessly rode away from the Wanty duo to collect the sole mountains classification point.

The peloton, having enjoyed a slight lull, followed over at 3:30, but soon the pace picked up as they neared the intermediate sprint at kilometre 147. Backaert issued revenge and showed Schar a clean pair of heels, but of more interest was the battle in the peloton between the green jersey hopefuls. Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida) was the first to hit out but it was Viviani who came past with a late surge, with Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) third from the bunch.

The breakaway continued to lose ground and, with the gap down to less than a minute as they entered the final 30km, Schar decided to shake things up in the break. Backaert was able to follow the attack but Offredo immediately waved goodbye.

The duo dug in well but it fell apart on the Cote de Maron, a 3.2km climb at 5 per cent that topped out just over 15km from the line. Schar attacked again and dropped Backaert near the bottom, but was caught himself by the peloton near the top. At that point Sunweb upped the tempo in a bid to hurt the pure sprinters but were unable to make much impact.

Lilian Calmejane (Total Direct Energie), a stage winner on his Tour debut in 2017, attacked on a false flat section with 11.5km to go and went solo for a while, but was unable to pull off the unlikeliest of upsets. He was caught with 6km to go, at which point Team Ineos took control of the peloton to keep their GC leaders safe until the safety of the 3km-to-go banner.

At that point, the sprint trains took over. UAE, Bahrain-Merida, and Dimension Data were all prominent, with Jumbo-Visma appearing well placed at first as Wout Van Aert led through a roundabout with just over a kilometre to go. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) led into the final 700 metres but behind him was the QuickStep train, which clicked into gear and made no mistake.

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