Wout van Aert wins Tour de France stage 4 in style and extends overall lead

He stated he felt an early assault was the best way to prevent a mass sprint at the line.

“I did not want to take the risk of losing any longer. It was very clear that we had been attempting a thing with the staff,” he explained. “I went total gasoline to see what would materialize. I went all out.”

The 27-12 months-aged Van Aert is deemed a person of the finest multi-qualified riders in the earth and is a former a few-time cyclo-cross planet champion and a just one-working day classics specialist.

The Jumbo-Visma rider flapped his fingers like a bird’s wings as he sat up on his bike. He crossed the line eight seconds crystal clear of countryman Jasper Philipsen of the Alpecin–Fenix staff, with Jumbo-Visma teammate Christophe Laporte having 3rd place in a dash finish.

“This jersey provides wings. It was definitely a challenging climb but this stage was incredibly possible heading to stop up in bunch dash,” Van Aert mentioned. “It was tough to finish on your own, but many thanks to the do the job of my teammates, I did it. It was up to me to finish it off.”

Van Aert picked up a 10-next time bonus and is now 25 seconds forward of Yves Lampaert in the all round standings and 32 seconds clear of two-time defending champion Tadej Pogacar.

Pogacar’s rival Primoz Roglic, the 2020 Tour runner-up and Van Aert’s teammate, stayed seventh general and remained nine seconds driving Pogacar, with the two ending in the main pack.

After a vacation day, riders tackled a sunny 106.3-mile route from the coastal city of Dunkirk to Calais, where by riders could see the English coastline when they arrived into the substantially-utilized port locale. Van Aert concluded it in 4 hrs, 1 moment, 36 seconds.

Danish rider Magnus Cort, who thrilled crowds with his breakaway rides through a few rigorous days in Denmark, was again in the early breakaway — this time together with Anthony Perez.

Perez pulled in advance some 28 miles out and Cort was caught by the peloton soon immediately after. Cort picked up far more details in the polka-dot jersey bid but a lot extra challenging climbs in the Alps and Pyrenees are continue to to appear.

Wednesday’s fifth phase is a flat stage for sprinters around 97 miles starting up at Lille Metropole and likely around some of the feared cobblestones that function on the Paris-Roubaix one particular-day common.

The race ends on July 24 in Paris.