Tour de la Provence Stage 4 Preview
- Rúben Silva
- Feb 13, 2021
- 3 min read
The day as expected, a cold finish in Chalet Reynard suited for the pure climbers and Ivan Sosa gave that theory a very good argument. The day was all about the final climb as expected, Astana tried to mess about a bit with some moves but throughout most of the climb Ineos paced and smashed the group to bits, and when with some kilometers to go Ivan Sosa attacked there was no-one that could follow, the Colombian took a strong solo win on favourable terrain in front of his teammate Egan Bernal who controlled the counter-attacks, and Julian Alaphilippe.
Positive: Ineos played it perfectly, physically and psychologically, shifting the attention to Bernal in the morning and allowing Sosa to be unmarked, masterclass in road racing. Alaphilippe after his brutal effort on the opening stage and the crash yesterday did brilliant still. Vansevenant and Rodriguez both worked in the main group and put on impressive performances, Jorgenson finishing 12th can have the same compliment.
Negative: Astana were definitely the team that didn't come to expectations, Vlasov faded towards the end but had his crash of yesterday as a bit of a justification, but Lutsenko was far from expected not even contesting the stage. Dylan Teuns, Enric Mas were riders I expected a bit more.
The Route
The final stage. One, finally, for the pure sprinters where they'll all get a chance to succeed. It's a mostly flat stage, there are some little bumps that will do mostly a favour to those fighting for secondary classifications. In case anything would happen, La Roquemartine is the place, it's just a slight climb, but with bonifications at the top there could be someone trying to get those seconds, and some team could try to push it.
The finish is somewhat technical. The road isn't very wide, and according to last August's Google Earth the final avenues have a lot of shade due to trees which will probably make it even tenser, specially in the final turns. The point at 1700 is quite more dangerous than the map makes it look, a sharp turn with road furniture in the middle, from there on it doesn't get much nicer with 3 90º turns into the final few hundred meters.
The Weather
There's a moderate breeze from the southeast, it will mostly mean a headwind throughout the day, the same will be found in the final kilometers but the final section won't be exposed.
The Favourites
Although stage 1 finished in a bunch sprint tomorrow is the only stage perfectly suited for the sprinters. All of the fast men will give it a shot, it's their best opportunity. So you should expect a battle between the leadouts into the final 2 kilometers, from there on just a rider or two in front is the ideal, and the sharp corners will mean the group will stretch out a lot and loosing contact with your leadout can easily happen.
As for the win there are two men who will be the men to beat, first will be the winner of both sprint stages so far Davide Ballerini. His quality was already unquestionable last year but this race really brought out the best of him, winning a bunch and a hilly sprint. Deceuninck arguably have an incredible team full of powerful classics riders who will surely thrive in having him in prime position for the sprint, whilst the rival team will certainly be Groupama who have their whole brilliant leadout in support of Arnaud Démare who hasn't had the race he wanted so far, however has an opportunity to save it as in paper he should be the fastest rider.
Behind those is... the competition. There's quite a lot of riders who will be eyeing out an elusive win, some of those are in great form like Nacer Bouhanni and Bryan Coquard who haven't actually yet translated that form into a win and will have another opportunity, there are some big powerhouse sprinters like Alexander Kristoff (who shouldn't enjoy such a technical finale) and Phil Bauhaus who has yet been under the radar but definitely has the quality to snatch a win, Szymon Sajnok and Matteo Moschetti will also enjoy a fast crazy finish.
As for the less heavy sprinters there's Alex Aranburu who finished third yesterday, Max Kanter who's got a nice opportunity to keep showing his potential as a top sprinter, John Degenkolb, Eduard-Michael Grosu who loves this kind of dangerous finishes, Clément Venturini and Niccolo Bonifazio.
Prediction Time
⭐ Kristoff, Coquard, Moschetti, Kanter, Grosu, Venturini, Bonifazio
I think Arnaud Démare will take vengeance and open up his tab for the season, with suppoert of his amazing leadout that will guide him in pole-position for the sprint.
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