Primoz Roglic has been touted as a future Tour winner for a while, and today he passed the first real test to determine if this will be his year by winning the summit finish at Orcières-Merlette.
After finishing fourth in 2018, last year Roglic rode the Giro (3rd overall) and the Vuelta (winner) instead, gaining valuable experience that he will help him in this strange year. He seems to have bounced back from a crash that saw him abandon the Dauphiné a couple weeks ago, and importantly he has the support of a very strong Jumbo-Visma team who set such a suffocating tempo on today’s final climb that nobody else could muster an attack.
The questions will be whether they can do so on bigger climbs — like Mont-Aigoual on Thursday — and whether the other favourites can ride into better form. Most notably, defending champion Egan Bernal looked shaky in today’s finale.
Meanwhile, the French continue to have a good Tour with Julian Alaphilippe hanging onto his yellow jersey for another day, maintaining his four-second gap over Adam Yates, and Benoit Cosnefroy continues to lead the mountains standings. The points competition is getting interesting: Sam Bennett picked up enough points in the intermediate sprint to be tied with Peter Sagan for the lead, though Sagan keeps the jersey because he’s better placed on the general classification.
In other news, despite finishing no higher than 13th on the stage, EF quietly took over the team classification from Trek-Segafredo; and Tadej Pogacar finished second on the stage to take over the white jersey of best young rider — not a bad day for Slovenians..
With the yellow, green and white classifications in play, we can expect an interesting battle in tomorrow’s transitional stage to Privat, with time bonuses that await at the end of an uphill sprint finish.
| Stage | 4 | |
| Terrain | Hilly | |
| Date | 09/01/2020 | |
| Route | ||
| Distance | 160.5 km | |
| STAGE RESULT | Points | |
| Stage 1st | 15 | Primož Roglič (Slo) TJV |
| Stage 2nd | 12 | Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAD* |
| Stage 3rd | 10 | Guillaume Martin (F) COF |
| Stage 4th | 8 | Nairo Quintana (Col) ARK |
| Stage 5th | 6 | Julian Alaphilippe (F) DQT |
| Stage 6th | 5 | Miguel Ángel López (Col) AST |
| Stage 7th | 4 | Egan Bernal (Col) INS* |
| Stage 8th | 3 | Thibaut Pinot (F) GFC |
| Stage 9th | 2 | Mikel Landa (Sp) TBM |
| Stage 10th | 1 | Adam Yates (GB) MTS |
| Intermediate sprint | 5 | Nils Politt (G) ISN |
| Class 1 climb | 5 | Primož Roglič (Slo) TJV |
| Class 3 climb | 2 | Quentin Pacher (F) BVC |
| Class 3 climb | 2 | Quentin Pacher (F) BVC |
| Class 3 climb | 2 | Krists Neilands (Lat) ISN* |
| Class 4 climb | 1 | Quentin Pacher (F) BVC |
| Best young rider | 1 | Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAD* |
| Most aggressive rider | 1 | Krists Neilands (Lat) ISN* |
| Best team | 3 | JUMBO – VISMA – TJV |
|
OVERALL STANDINGS
|
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| Yellow jersey | 10 | Julian Alaphilippe (F) DQT |
| Team classification | 7 | EF PRO CYCLING – EF1 |
| Green jersey | 7 | Peter Sagan (Svk) BOH |
| Polka dot jersey | 7 | Benoît Cosnefroy (F) ALM* |
| White jersey | 5 | Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAD* |
The Ottawa Tour de France Pool 