Tour de France 2024 stage 4 preview – Pogačar, Vingegaard, and the Galibier as the race reaches France

Following the Tour de France's Grande Partenza in neighbouring Italy – featuring a scorching hot opening weekend through the Apennines and a comatose sprint stage across the Po Valley – the race hits France and the Alps on stage 4.

The race has never headed into the mountains this early, though it isn't going the way of the Giro d'Italia or Vuelta a España with a first-week summit finish. In the 2,642-metre high Col du Galibier, however, the peloton will be tackling the first hors catégorie climb of this year's event and its second-highest mountain pass.

The 23km climb, which averages 5.1% but reaches 9% in places near the top, may not be the steepest test of the Tour but it's the main attraction of the day and an unprecedented test for the first week.

After a departure from Pinerolo, the opening 50km brings a long grind up to Sestrières (39.9km at 3.7%) and another second-category test at the Col de Montgenèvre (8.3km at 5.9%) which takes the peloton back to France. The main challenge of the stage still lies ahead, though, with the Galibier set to play host to another battle in the war between race favourites Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).

Could Pogačar be content to see the yellow jersey, which he claimed on stage 2 but then gave up the next day, now go to a breakaway – in the process reaping the benefits of saving his UAE Team Emirates squad and avoiding hours of post-stage media obligations? Or will the pair of favourites be front and centre, leading the Tour over the Galibier and sprinting for the bonus seconds on offer at its peak?

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"We're not obligated to keep the jersey," UAE general manager Mauro Gianetti said on Monday before Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) had handily taken over yellow at the stage 3 finish in Turin.

"Stage 2 was important to see the real condition of rivals, a good day to test everyone. We know that [Pogačar] is very good, like we expected, and we're happy to see this."

Even with a cluster of flatter sprint-friendly days lying in the near future – as well as the stage 7 time trial and stage 9 gravel stage in Troyes – UAE don't sound overly enthused about having to control the race when sprinters' teams including Alpecin-Deceuninck and Lidl-Trek could be doing the bulk of the work instead.

"But stage 4 is another important stage, like every day," Gianetti said. "The Galibier is the Galibier, we need to pay our respects and we'll see, from tomorrow, another picture.

"The mountains are big and heavy. You can't play games, you need to be there, and everybody needs to go full gas."

Carapaz's EF team may well ride to defend yellow, and if that scenario plays out then we may well see more GC fireworks at the top of the Galibier, with Pogačar and Vingegaard likely to be strongest once more.

That is, however, just one possible outcome of the day. After all, Carapaz is a high-altitude native, hailing from El Carmelo in Ecuador at 2,800 metres above sea level.

Another scenario could see the descent into Valloire, rather than the long and steady ascent to high altitude, decide the day. If that's the case, then look out for Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers). The Briton may be handed freedom to attack on the way down, and we all saw how he can fly down the Galibier two summers ago.

Will the remainder of the 'big four', Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), hang in there with the pair of two-time winners? And will the second-tier favourites such as Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla), Enric Mas (Movistar), Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), and Carlos Rdoríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) stay closer than they did after Pogačar pulled the trigger atop the San Luca on stage 2?

Stage 4 trivia

• After 704km of racing – just over 20% of the Tour's total distance – the race hits France for the first time via the Col de Montgenèvre. That climb, the preceding climb to Sestrières, and the start town of Pinerolo, feature on the Tour for the first time since 2011. Back then, they were raced in the reverse order, with Edvald Boasson Hagen soloing to his second victory of the race, 40 seconds up on Bauke Mollema. Both men are still racing now, though neither started this year's Tour.
• The Tour de France returns to Valloire after a five-year break. The ski resort town's most recent Tour stage saw Nairo Quintana break away up the Col du Galibier to score a 26km solo victory on stage 18. Five minutes behind the Colombian, Egan Bernal continued to chip away at Julian Alaphilippe's GC lead, which he would infamously take for good during the next day's neutralised stage on the Col d'Iseran.
• Stage 3 marks the first time an Ecuadorian rider will have ever raced a Tour de France stage in the yellow of race leader. Richard Carapaz leads the race on position countback and could well only spend one day in the maillot jaune, but he may be re-calibrating his Tour de France goals towards the GC after he and his team were cautious about their aims ahead of the race.

Stage 4 sprints

• Intermediate sprint in Castel del Bosco, km 18.9
• Time bonus sprint on Col du Galibier, km 120.7

Stage 4 mountains

• Sestrières (39.9km at 3.7%) cat. 2, km 50.4 
• Col de Montgenèvre (8.3km at 5.9%) cat. 2, km 71.1
• Col du Galibier - Souvenir Henri Desgrange (23km at 5.1%), cat. HC, km 120.7