STAGE 4: Hazebrouck - Cassel 182 KM's

Stage Favourites:
*****Bak(FES) *****Duque(CRL) ****Bagdonas(MCD)
***Jerome(CRL) **Felline(CRE) *Ghyselinck(FES)

Only the first 40 kilometres offer any respite after that we ascend the cobbled hill of Mont Cassel a dozen times.

Today an 8 man break formed right from the off. The riders: Ghyselinck, Valls, Reihs, Jerome, Marlon Perez, de la Fuente, Ostergaard and Roux. Ghyselinck was the best placed (20th @3'40).

As soon as the first cobbled section is reached with 135 kilometres to go the peloton constantly breaks and then rejoins. Millar is constantly being dropped as he is towards the rear of the peloton.

Gadret FALLS! With 112 kilometres to go. The question is what damage has been done?

There are still over 100 riders in the peloton as Burghardt and Grabsch are spotted well off the rear. The vast majority of the pace setting is being done by Gatorade, who are protecting the pink jersey.

The break never look a danger until there is about 50 kilometres to go when the Gatorade domestiques are spent. Ghyselinck and Jerome are clearly the strongest and distance the rest of the break before Reihs and Ostegaard join back up. However, it is not long before they are dropped.

The 2 have 4'00 with 40 kilometres to go.

With 34 kilometres to go Aru and Bochmann attack. They make no gap to the rest of the peloton.

At this point the teams in the peloton start playing cat and mouse with each other and the gap to the break spirals back out to over a whopping 5'00. The GC could well change hands today.

Bak was up in the GC but he has a really nasty fall with 26 kilometres to go. Countless riders fell on the day including Scognamiglio and Miyazawa. All the racing was too much for Minguez of Banco, he abandons with 104 kilometres to go.

Sieberg in his KOM jersey can only watch on, helplessly, as a group of riders with more energy zip past. Out front the stage will definitely be between Jerome and Ghyselinck.

With 13 kilometres to go, on the penultimate time up Mont Cassel, Gusev attacks. Gadret goes with this move.... not far after Slagter, Felline, Knees and Amador ride across. Navarro and some other pure climbers are 1'00 down at this stage on their rivals. The Gusev group will be absorbed by a 25 man group with 7 kilometres to go.

The two men from the original break have their gap of 5'40 cut quite a bit. As Jerome leads the two towards the finish....

JEROME is the stronger. STAGE WIN FOR CARLSBERG.

The 2 were equally matched but Jerome was a tad stronger on the day. Ghyselinck did not win but he would move into the GC lead for his brave efforts....

The next man home is.... Gadret. He shot up the final climb and put '30 into his rivals and over 2'00 into some of the purer climbers. He clearly wasn't effected by his crash! Hansen looses the GC lead after one stage.

A stage of Carnage

Stage Favourites:
*****Lighart(BOR) ****Cooke(AER) ***Felline(CRE)
**Duque(CRL) *Fernandez(TBG)

The 8 man break consisted of: Marlon Perez, Eijssen, Roulston, Keisse, Vermote, Herrada, Roux and Rasch.

Chaoufi of Cartoon Network would try and attack across to the guys, but did not have the strength. He would ride in no mans' land for a while before being unceremoniously dropped by the peloton and ending up way down on the stage.

His teammate, however, Cardoso had a better day. Despite falling and puncturing yesterday the Portuguese rider attacked out of the peloton with 30 kilometres to go.... Despite this all breaks are eaten up by the peloton with 10 kilometers having been led by Festina and then, subsequently, the sprinters' teams..

Carlsberg and McDonald's once again have the dominant lead outs. Bagdonas puts in one final effort for his sprinter, Fenn, ..... but the Brit can't follow the Lithuanians' wheel and flatters to deceive again.

Duque looks very strong and heads the field but has he gone a fraction early?.....

Yes he did. Felline takes the win. He followed Fenn today and had enough in the legs to come around an impressive Duque in the closing meters in another close finish. Cooke surged well for second.

Stage win for Credit Suisse. The Prize for the win being a Marge Simpson special edition of Playboy!