Stage 4

The road

At the start

Dunkerque to Calais, six little hills

The Tour lands in France with Wout van Aert in yellow, seven seconds up on Yves Lampaert and fourteen on Tadej Pogačar. Today looks like a sprint and is built like a Classic: 172 kilometres between two North Sea ports with barely a flat stretch in the middle, the cobbled Côte de Cassel early, four short walls inside fifty kilometres, and the Cap Blanc-Nez above the Channel eleven from home.

How it was won

1. 174 km to go

   Cort keeps collecting

   With 75km left the escapees still hold three and a half minutes, and Cort inevitably leads Perez over the top to defend the polka dots he took in Denmark.

2. 248 km to go

   Perez goes it alone

   Cort takes the penultimate climb by the tacit accord of the break, then lets Perez slip away solo. Cofidis are racing at home and need something to show for the afternoon.

3. 314 km to go

   The break's last man is swallowed

   Alpecin and Trek have squeezed the gap to nothing and Perez is reeled in almost at the foot of the final climb. Ineos sense the danger and mass their GC men at the front — then Jumbo-Visma simply ride over the top of them.

4. 411 km to go

   Van Aert detonates the Cap Blanc-Nez

   Benoot swings off and Van Aert goes, a rasping acceleration that sprinkles the peloton across the chalk hillside above the Channel. Only Vingegaard and a very alert Adam Yates get near him, and both are gone before the summit. Pogačar is caught out and scrambling behind — the yellow jersey is riding away from everybody, alone.

5. 5At the line

   Solo into Calais in yellow

   Van Aert cruises to the line untroubled, ending his long run of Tour near-misses in the maillot jaune. Behind, Philipsen beats Laporte for second and celebrates wildly, convinced he has won — an easy enough mistake when the winner was in a race of his own.

The result