Key events
Had the feel of a second-week transition stage today, not day four of the race. Must have been the woozy heat and the way the bunch knocked off their effort in the stage’s second half.
Pedersen reflects on ‘masterpiece in teamwork’
I would say a masterpiece in teamwork, maybe not climbing, I was suffering a lot that last climb. Mathias [Vacek] and Quinn [Simmonos] did incredibly on the climb to pace it well for me and make sure we didn’t lose too much time over the top. They were just machines from there to the finish line. What a team effort, what a team win today.
I had a good talk with Luca [Guercilena], our [departing] team manager before the race and he said “please win me a stage, and please do it early in the race”. I will say this stage is for Luca and all the good years we had together, I’m thankful for all the good things he did for me.
On racing in the extreme heat and moving into the green jersey:
At one point, you just have to live with it and do what you can to cool down. Honestly, to be in the break and have the car that close, it makes it easier to cool down. We have so many people on the road with water and ice to cool down. We went through a few bottles to cool down!
It would have been nice to win the intermediate sprint, but at least i’m picking up 50 points here on the finish line here.
Stage four results and general classification standings
1. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) 4h 10mins 45secs
2. Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek)
3. Raul Garcia Pierna (Movistar Team)
4. Marco Frigo (NSN Cycling Team)
5. Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin-Premier Tech)
6. Kévin Vauquelin (Netcompany Ineos)
7. Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost)
8. Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility)
9. Pablo Castrillo (Movistar Team)
10. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) all same time
General classification after stage four
1. Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility)
2. Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost) at 28 seconds
3. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) at 3mins 50secs
4. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at 7mins 53secs
5. Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma-Lease a Bike)
6. Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin-Premier Tech) at 8mins 6secs
7. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) at 8 mins 16secs
8. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at 8 mins 17secs
9. Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) at 8 mins 20secs
10. Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) at 8 mins 41secs
The peloton rolls into Foix, 12mins 59secs behind winner Mads Pedersen. A more relaxed final few hours for Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and the other contenders. Clearly, UAE and Visma do not see Træen as a genuine GC threat, but his ninth at the Vuelta last year shows he is no soft touch.
Torstein Træen moves into race lead
The 30-year-old Uno-X Mobility will pull on the yellow jersey after spending the day in the breakaway. What a story for the Norwegian, who had testicular cancer in 2022 and a tumour cut out. Big for his squad too, one of the smaller squads at this race.
He will have a lead of around seven minutes over Pogacar and Vingegaard. Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost) moves up to second, just 28 seconds behind Træn. The first man with an ash ligature (æ) in his name to wear the leader’s jersey, surely?
A one-two for Lidl-Trek, with Quinn Simmons second and Raul Garcia Pierna (Movistar) in third. Vauquelin dive-bombed the final corner, but it came to nothing.
Pedersen won that sprint extremely comfortably. He broke his collarbone and wrist in a February crash, now one of the sport’s stars is back on the podium.
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Mads Pedersen wins stage four!
Textbook teamwork from Lidl-Trek and the Dane finishes it off with an unmatchable sprint. He accelerated early after being second into the corner and put metres into his rivals. He has hugs for Vacek and Simmons at the finish.
1km to go. Pablo Castrillo with another attack but it lacks sting. Under the flamme rouge, Vacek leads Pedersen and Quinn, ramping it up to lead out the Dane.
Torstein Træn is in the wheels and will pull on the yellow jersey tonight. But who will win the stage?
2km to go. I reckon most of these breakaway riders are on their knees after a day racing full bore in this heat. The mind might know the need to attack, but the body is weak.
Matthias Vacek sits on the front, Pedersen in second wheel. Quinn can sprint from this group, but the Dane will be hard to beat.
3km to go. A very half-hearted attack from Marco Frigo (NSN). US champion Simmons is untroubled, tracks it and sets the pace.
4km to go. Vauquelin is biding his time in the front group, swinging out of the paceline to the back and refusing to do a turn. It’s getting to the point of now or never for the escapees. Who can make it difficult for Lidl-Trek and Pedersen?
6km to go. The other breakaways need to wait for a lull, but with Vacek and Simmons here, there will be no lull. Castrillo telegraphs an attack and the Czech rider is straight on it. As the finish in Foix approaches, it is looking rather good for Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), watching and waiting to make a victorious sprint.
8km to go. Raul Garcia Pierna (Movistar) attacks. Lidl-Trek duo Simmons and Vacek combine to bring him to heel.
9km to go. Træen and Quinn stand to move into the top two spots of the GC with an advantage of seven or so minutes over Pogacar, Vingegaard and the rest. The American is not a bad sprinter either but he might need to take a flyer to beat Pedersen.
Attacks are going to rain in this finale, any time now…
11km to go. Matthias Vacek goes back to the car for a last bit of sustenance and Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) takes that opportunity to accelerate. No dice, Pedersen was right on him.
Lidl-Trek have three men in this group of ten. Can anyone outfox or outmuscle them on the flat run-in to Foix?
Meanwhile, scenes at the finish to cool fans down:
16km to go. Bike change for Tom Pidcock (Q36.5-Pinarello) on the Col de Montségur descent in the peloton. They are not racing all-out and he should catch the back of the pack without issues.
19km to go. The leaders are about to climb an uncategorised hill, the last bit of up before the finish in Foix. Maybe a chance for an attack.
The lead group are collaborating decently, but Lidl-Trek have the numerical advantage, working hard for fast finisher Mads Pedersen in this group. This is theirs to lose.
25km to go. It would be a hell of a story too for Træn too. The 30-year-old climber was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2022 and had a tumour removed, returning to racing with a clean bill of health later that season.
Ninth overall in the Vuelta a España last year,, he wore the red yellow leader’s jersey for several days but this is cycling’s ultimate prize.
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Break splits up over final climb
28km to go. Ten men in front as they conclude a harum-scarum descent. Got to be mindful of melted tarmac in these boiling conditions too.
They are Lidl-Trek trio Mads Pedersen, Quinn Simmons and Matthias Vacek, Movistar twosome Raul Garcia Pierna and Pablo Castrillo, Kévin Vauquelin (Netcompany Ineos), Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility), Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), Marco Frigo (NSN) and the fabulously-named Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin-Premier Tech).
Træen stands to move into the yellow jersey, with Pogacar in the peloton over 10 minutes in arrears.
35km to go. Marco Frigo (NSN) gives it a dig and leads over the top of the col, but Quinn Simmons has him in his sights, setting the pace most of the way up the climb. It is advantage Lidl-Trek, with three riders in the whittled-down 11-strong front group, with Pedersen and Vacek hanging in there.
38km to go. Vacek and Tratnik have been caught as EF Education First’s Valgren taps out a punishing tempo up the climb.
The peloton with Pogacar is eight minutes in arrears. Up front, Torsten Træn (Uno-X Mobility) looks likely to move into the yellow jersey unless Sean Quinn can put 28 seconds into him.
Quinn is trying his best too. He takes over the pace-setting and riders are being dropped, including Gregoire and Van den Broeck.
41km to go. Pedersen is a strong, top-quality rider but there are plenty of other teams and riders who want to drop him and seize a chance to win a Tour stage.
I’ll predict a few danger-men: Kévin Vauquelin (Netcompany Ineos), Pablo Castrillo (Movistar), Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ United) and Quinten Hermans (Pinarello-Q36.5).
43km to go. The lead for Vacek, Tratnik and Kirsch has plummeted, just 11 seconds to the 28-strong chase group behind. Lidl-Trek want Pedersen to win today. They are about to start climbing the day’s last categorised climb, the cat-2 Col de Montségur.
Meanwhile, the fans are going bananas.
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47km to go. “France is watching you. everyone is watching you today. I don’t want any doubts, any regrets. I want 100% Kevin Vauquelin today,” sports director Daryl Impey says over race radio to the Netcompany Ineos rider in the break. I feel pumped up and motivated ,and it’s not even aimed at me.
One of the better messages broadcast over race radio to viewers, which are all pre-vetted anyway. Most of them don’t add much insight, but Pogacar’s “I’m dead, I’m gone,” from 2023 will take some beating.
Jeremy Whittle
The heat in Foix is brutal, like southern Spain in August, with people gathering in the shadows and avoiding the sun. On the way to the finish area, the roads were melting and most spectators huddled under umbrellas or roadside trees.
For the Tour’s suiveurs, the biggest hardship has been the moving of the sweat box that was the usual Foix press room, set in a metal shed on the bank of the Ariege river, but blessed with a great riverside buffet. Paddling while also eating had become de rigueur. Not this year though.
55km to go. There is a fast descent for leaders Matthias Vacek (Lidl-Trek), Alex Kirsch (Cofidis) and Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) as they close on the day’s final categorised climb, the Col de Montségur. Vacek appears to be doing a lot less work on the front than his companions, with the likely excuse that his team captain Mads Pedersen is their main man, in the group behind.
The trio has a lead of 50 seconds. However, I expect attacks to fly behind and the 29-strong main break group to splinter on the Montségur, 6.9km in length at 6.6% average gradient.
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59km to go. Photographs from a broiling fourth stage on the Tour de France.
Joan and Andy H write in from the roadside of stage four:
Just seen the peloton pass at the start of the climb after Quillan. It’s 44 degrees here and the breakaway and the peloton seemed to be moving in slow motion, even Pogacar. I don’t know how they are managing.
66km to go. The peloton have knocked off the pace and are taking on feed bags with sustenance and frozen nutrition. They are 7min 28secs behind. I reckon the yellow jersey is changing hands today: Træn and Quinn are the two likely candidates. The Norwegian would surely be the first person with an ash ligature to wear the maillot jaune.
Alex Kirsch (Cofidis) has crossed the gap to Vacek and Tratnik, making it three in front, leading by 24 seconds.
75km to go. Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) have continued their effort and they lead by 45 seconds going over the Col du Coudons. Behind, Mads Pedersen uses the plateau at the top to put the hammer down.
Crash at the back of the bunch, involving British rider Jake Stewart (NSN). He has spent minutes being checked out by the medical staff.
80km to go. Sam Bass writes in with a cycling-based board game recommendation. I must have it!
With you on finding Carcassonne (the board game) a bit of a churn. I can however – as the owner of 100+ board games – recommend Flamme Rouge to you and perhaps readers of this blog who enjoy a little organised fun. It’s not your traditional dice-chucking, luck-based race game. It’s simple yet deceptively smart card play, charmingly mimicks race conditions like eating wind and slipstreaming. Especially fun when someone ‘bonks’ having wasted their high energy cards too early.
Been enjoying your writing this TdF! It’s been keeping me company on these slow summer days.
82km to go. The break is on the second-category Col de Coudons. More like cauldron today, with precious little shade. Vacek and Tratnik have drifted off the front, with a lead of 15 seconds.
Green jersey points in the bag, Girmay and Philipsen have sat up and are dropping back to the bunch – which is still being led by UAE Team Emirates-XRG worker Nils Politt. Earning his keep this afternoon.
85km to go. Transpires there was a earlier error in my email address, it should be corrected now.
Hopes, thoughts, predictions, Seixasmania, cassoulet tips and tangents can be sent to the address linked above or andy.mcgrath.casual@guardian.co.uk
Girmay wins the intermediate sprint
89km to go. Through the sprint at Quillan, the Eritrean is best of the fast men, pipping Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen.
Their group’s gap is up to 4min 30secs. By the way, Torsten Træen (Uno-X Mobility) is the best-placed rider in the group, 5min 6secs behind Pogacar. Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost) is 5min 34secs down too. If their lead keeps rising, they will be thinking that the yellow jersey is a possibility, not just a stage win.
117km to go. The beefy break goes up and over the third-category Col du Paradis, Alex Molenaar outsprinting Michael Valgren to take two King of the Mountains points. Their advantage? 3 mins 5secs.
The camera rest briefly on Decathlon CMA CGM Team leader Paul Seixas. How do you think the much-touted French teenager will do at the Tour? Or will someone else be the revelation of this race? Let me know and have a read of Jeremy Whittle’s pre-race piece about him while I pop out for some grub:
124km to go. It is absolutely baking out there in the Aude, temperatures of 36 degrees Celsius. Not very fun under that sun.
Riders stay calm, cool and collected by spraying themselves with water from their bottles, having slushies and stuffing ice socks down their jerseys. (Not actual foot socks). Soigneurs must have been working overtime cramming cooler boxes with goodies.
130km to go. Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) goes over the fourth-category Col des Bedos first.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG strongman Nils Politt, he of the incandescent teeth – Geraint Thomas once called him the “Flying Dentist” on a podcast – and dynamite legs, has ridden on the front for the last half an hour, taking the bunch’s deficit down to 3mins 19 secs.
135km to go. TNT Sports comms chatting away about cassoulet. Since my first Tours on the grounds over 15 years ago, my colleagues were delighted about being in Occitanie because we could chow down on this regional dish, and they passed on that appreciation.
Beans, sausages, bacon, duck, goose, mutton, chicken legs in a sizzling hot pot: it is a hearty, delicious dish for a warm winter’s day. Not what you want during a sizzling summer and no riders will be tucking in. Still, for fans and the press pack, when in Rome Carcassonne…
140km to go. Stage start town Carcassonne is also a board game, all about building a road network and landscape. Have to say I found it very dull the one time I played it, perhaps the flaw was only having two of us. It’s no Catan.
148km to go. Seventeen of the Tour’s 23 teams are represented in this mega-escape, in with a chance. Their lead is 3mins 45secs.
Two of the squad missing out – UAE and Visma-Lease a Bike – are leading the bunch, only too happy to look after their superstar leaders. Decathlon CMA CGM Team, XDS Astana and Tudor are the others to miss out, their riders probably getting an earful over race radio by annoyed sport directors.
Large breakaway escapes
155km to go. The peloton fans across the road, happy for some let-up in the action. Rider after rider attacked, making it a 34-strong super-group. A fair few too many riders to be particularly cohesive, I’d wager.
The biggest names up the road? Former world champ Mads Pedersen, Jasper Stuyven, sprint star Jasper Philipsen, four-time Tour stage winner Michael Matthews, Biniam Girmay and French champion Romain Grégoire.
The full rundown of escapees (surnames only or I’ll be here all day): Pedersen, Simmons, Vacek, Quinn, Valgren, Steinhauser, Denz, Tratnik, Vauquelin, Van Mechelen, Stannard, Stuyven, Eenkhoorn, Philipsen, Debruyne, Planckaert, Matthews, Træen, Girmay, Frigo, Zimmermann, Izagirre, Kirsch, Castrillo, Oliveira, Garcia Pierna, Gregoire, Costiou, Delettre, Hermans, Van Moer, Molenaar, Nicolau and, last but not least, Van den Broeck.
165km to go. You can see interesting micro-dynamics in every attack. A UAE rider shoots off up the road, followed seconds later by an eagle-eyed Visma-Lease a Bike man. The teams of the two protagonists do not want the other to have an upper hand.
Two Netcompany Ineos riders give it a go. The team formerly known as Sky, which used to dominate the Tour, will be stage hunting this summer. 2018 winner Geraint Thomas is their Director of Racing in the backroom.
174km to go. 14 riders have gone up the road, including Jasper Stuyven and Mads Pedersen, but the chase is on.
No ITV coverage also means no goosebump-inducing theme tune. Enjoy it one more time:
Evidently a British viewer, Glenn Macdonald-Jones writes in, pulling no punches about the free-to-air highlights.
The post race analysis on Ch 5 is much weaker than the ITV4 used to be because it’s non-existent. Dreadful.
Off we go!
181km to go. The peloton passes kilometre zero after a long neutralised roll-out of Carcassonne. Remco Evenepoel had a flat tyre in that section: the best moment to have one, no chance of losing ground.
There is going to be an almighty scrap to be in the day’s breakaway. The day’s first attacker is US champion Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek).
Doyen of cycling journalism William Fotheringham reckons this could be a stage for veteran campaigners Michal Kwiatkowski or Magnus Cort. You can read his team-by-team guide here:
Yorkshire’s Tom Pidcock on the temperatures yesterday: “I don’t think I’ve done such a hard race in such heat before, it was ridiculous. Like a warzone.”
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The stage rolls out of Carcassonne in five minutes’ time. With its cobbled streets and crenellations which could have been drawn by a child, the fairytale fortified French city is unsurprisingly popular with tourists.
I’ve fond memories of it too: I watched England muller Panama 6-1 in the 2018 World Cup in a bar there. Jesse Lingard’s last goal for England, maybe?
Pogacar and Vingegaard may be on the exact same time overall, but the Slovenian struck an early psychological blow yesterday. UAE Team Emirates-XRG seized the race by the scruff of the neck when there was no real need to jump into action.
The distance he put into his rivals in a 300-metre sprint was very impressive. He looks imperious, ominous before the tougher mountain stages.
As Jeremy Whittle noted in his report, Pogacar’s 22nd Tour stage win fuelled talk of him closing further on Mark Cavendish’s win record of 35 but the Slovene batted away the suggestion. “It’s still far away,” he said.
“Maybe today was my last victory ever. I prefer to stay in the moment and enjoy this victory. I don’t want to think about Mark’s record. Just go with the flow.”
No big names have fallen out of contention yet, but an outsider under-performing yesterday was spellcheck-upsetting Cian Uijtdebroeks. The Movistar captain finished a minute behind Pogacar and also suffered cramps in the race-opening TTT.
The debutant, touted as a possible grand tour star a few years ago, is already 3min 24secs down on the sport’s Slovenian slayer. Ouch.
Breakfast news: we are also in south-west France, the part where they call a pain au chocolat a chocolatine. There are even bits of the nation, way out east, which call the delicious pastry a petit pain au chocolat.
A minefield for any suspecting tourist blithely walking into the local boulangerie.
Preamble
Through Cathar and cassoulet country we go for the 2026 Tour de France’s first fully French stage. It covers a lumpy 181.9km from splendorous Carcassonne to Foix over four categorised climbs.
There is not quite as much climbing on the menu as yesterday, but it will be even hotter, with temperatures expected to be reaching 40 degrees Celsius. Ah, the sweaty reality of a modern Tour taking place in July during the climate crisis.
Riders will be getting through water bottles into double figures and using ice socks down the back of their necks. Stage three winner and new race leader, Tadej Pogačar, has done plenty of heat training, but believes racing in the heat is “dangerous” if you don’t keep your body temperature down.
“It’s a logistic nightmare when it’s hot like today,” Pogačar said yesterday. “As a team, we really start to put a lot of effort into this … we have to bring so much water and ice to the riders. Three guys go back to the car to bring bottles and ice to keep cooling yourself.”
The sport’s governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has tweaked rules, authorising the use of feed bags in zones initially defined for the provision of bottles only on categorised climbs ie. racers can also carry water bottles in their musettes. Every little helps.
After three stages putting Tour de France contenders to the fore, this should be one for the breakaways. Okay, I said the same 24 hours ago and UAE Team Emirates-XRG proved me wrong, but I’m even more adamant today.
The Col de Montségur, topped 35km from the finish, will be a likely launchpad for stage-winning attacks.
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Contenders, then. A day like this will pique the interest of a range of riders: British champion Fred Wright (Pinarello-Q36.5) has already noted his interest to media. This medium-mountain day will also suit Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) and Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), perhaps a quick, resilient sprinter who can climb well like Michael Matthews (Jayco Alula) or Alex Aranburu (Cofidis). And then there is always awe-inspiring Monument man Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech?)…
Got Pogi fatigue yet? Enjoying Channel 5’s highlights coverage in the UK? Send over your Tour thoughts, predictions, quips, questions and tangents to me here or on Bluesky.
