The European Champion couldn’t fight for victory Tuesday afternoon after a chaotic finale.
Starting from the spa town of Dax, where Wim Van Est became the first Dutchman to wear the yellow jersey in 1951, stage four saw the riders spend the entire day in the Landes Department. The 181.8km course wasn’t pan-flat, but the undulating roads didn’t pose a problem to the sprinters’ teams, who easily controlled the breakaway that formed only after the intermediate sprint, bringing it back with twenty kilometers to go.
For the first time since 1989, when Raul Alcala prevailed in Spa, a Tour de France stage concluded on a racing circuit, and the closing kilometers in Nogaro were more hectic than on a regular finish, three crashes taking place as more and more teams and sprinters made their way to the front of the group. Fabio Jakobsen was among those to hit the ground in the first incident and lost any chance to fight for victory, which went to Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck). Fortunately, the European Champion got back on his bike and concluded the stage a couple of minutes behind the bunch.
“Today was chaos out there and the crash of Fabio was a hard one. The bike was in three pieces, so he really went down hard. At the moment, he has a lot of abrasions. It’s not an ideal situation, especially with the two hard stages coming now, but Fabio is a real fighter”, said Soudal Quick-Step sports director Tom Steels.
Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele / Getty Images
