2010 Tour de France: Day 4 News, Notes and Quotes

In today’s Tour de France news, long day at the front for De Greef, Bradley Wiggins relieved to move to normal stages, AFLD satisfied with dope testing and more…

At last, it was a relatively uneventful day at the 2010 Tour de France. As of this writing, only one crash of significance today, as Amets Txurruka went down and re-injured the clavicle that he broke in this year’s Tour of the Basque Country.

• A group of five riders escaped early and rode off the front for 149 of the race’s 153.5 kilometers. Francis De Greef (Omega Pharma-Lotto) was one of the five fugitives, but just could not hold out until the finish in Reims. “It was a long and difficult day,” said the Tour debutant. “I’m afraid I even got a little sunstroke.”
• Alessandro Petacchi rode to his second Tour de France win this year and the sixth in his career. Ale-Jet was led out by teammates Hondo, Bole, Spilak, Lorenzetto and Gavazzi in the final meters into Reims. “This was a perfect sprint, as perfect were today my legs: probably yesterday efforts on cobblestones helped me to be very brilliant today,” Petacchi commented. “I didn’t want to wait for Cavendish or Hushovd to start the sprint, so thanks to an outstanding action by Hondo I began my sprint at 300m to go, pedaling in a powerful way on the left side of the road, that was rising too.”
• Garmin-Transitions’ Julian Dean powered to second place, and was pleasantly surprised with the result. “I was a bit surprised, you never start out after being in the hosptial two days ago thinking you’re going to do that. I’m over the moon to achieve this but wish I was 100 percent for the sprint. I feel like maybe I could have won. But that said I’m really proud of what the team’s acheived – fourth yesterday and second and fifth today. Despite the loss of Christian and Tyler being on the back foot, we have a competitive team and we’re here to race.”
• Thor Hushvod finished ninth and has a narrow hold on the green jersey. “I wanted to do better, but I missed the power in the sprint today. It’s the fatigue of the efforts from the past three days catching up with me, especially from yesterday. Also, today was our first day in the heat, and I don’t do real well in the heat, so I was suffering all day. I was too early in the front in the sprint. I was on the wheel of Cavendish, but Petacchi started a long sprint, and I had to start my sprint again… Of course I want to win the green jersey again, but first I want to win another stage. The fight to the green jersey is just starting.”
• HTC-Columbia’s Mark Cavendish was right at the fore in the sprint, but faded at the end and finished 12th. Cavendish was lead out by Mark Renshaw, who said, “I am sure Mark will win a stage. I am 100 percent sure. He has the legs, he is mentally strong enough, and with the team behind him, like Eisel, Martin, there’s no reason he won’t.”
• Team Sky’s Edvald Boasson-Hagen was right in the mix in the final sprint but with 500 metres to go ,the Norwegian appeared to be boxed in by his rivals but opened up space for himself by swinging to the left of the pack and then hit the gas hard to secure his 3rd place podium position.
• Boasson-Hagen’s teammate Bradley Wiggins was relieved after safely negotiating the treacherous start to the Tour de France. He’s convinced he has survived the worst part of the race before attacking the Pyrenees in the third week. The Briton, who is his country’s best chance of a first Tour podium after finishing fourth last year, sports a few bruises and scratches on his right arm but has otherwise emerged relatively unscathed in two days of crashes and incidents on slippery roads and cobblestones. “I’m very happy with the way it turned out. You need a little bit of luck but we managed to stay out of trouble.”
• Shortly after the end of the stage, Lance Armstrong stepped down from his RadioShack team bus to answer questions. A heckler shouted “Cheat!” and “Doper!” at the seven-time Tour winner, who did not respond and climbed into a team car. The man then had a brief argument with Johan Bruyneel, Armstrong’s team manager.
• The French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) has expressed satisfaction with the course of doping controls at this year’s Tour de France so far. Before the tour, a dispute between the UCI, WADA and the AFLD escalated after AFLD  president Pierre Bordry accused the UCI of inefficiency and lack of transparency in the anti-doping fight.

• Team Saxo Bank’s Fabian Cancellara is still the leader of the race. “The stage went just as we planned. We didn’t spend too much energy in front of the field so we had a fair chance of recovering from yesterday’s stage. Of course, we will miss Frank Schleck in the mountains but Jakob Fuglsang has been doing very well so far and looks strong and I asked him to stay in the top of the GC. This way, we will have another great card to play against the other favorites when we reach the mountains,” said team owner and sports director, Bjarne Riis.

• Andy Schleck expressed frustration at the cobbles and the crash of his brother Frank. He lashed out at the organizers of this course. “What do they think? That we are puppets on a string. Puppets? It’s no Muppet Show. I feel that sometimes they just want a good theatrical performance on TV.”