Favourites:

Lo Cicero	Cavendish	Ciolek
Vantomme		Goss

Vanderbiest starts his second day in yellow, would he be in the race lead come the end of the longest stage?


Zamri: the most aggressive rider so far.

The four man break today:

Horton would join his teammate Barclay, provisionally, in the top 10 after finishing 1st at both intermediate sprintpoints securing '12 seconds of time.



The break would cooperate well today, with 7 KM to go they still had '35 over the usual chasing teams. RBC Pro Cycling have the race lead but leave the chasing to the other teams.


4 KM to go: the break are caught.

It was a brave effort but the break are caught by the peloton, Team Puma - SAP are the ones leading the charge. In contrast to the previous stages, today, the final run-in is technical with more than a few turns to be negotiated in the final.



Team Puma - SAP and Meiji - Cannondale, each, ensure their main sprinter is in a good position with 300 meters to go with a fast finish coming up.


250 meters to go.

Napolitano	Giaux	Goss
Ciolek
	Maksimov	Lavoine
Lo Cicero
	Cavendish
Vanderbiest

The speeds are well up with all the above mentioned going well over 70 km/h and some reaching speeds of 80 km/h. Vanderbiest looks poised to lose the race lead as it will be difficult for him to finish on the podium from here at such speeds with so little distance to go.



Napolitano shows well in another sprint, but does he know his nemesis is on his wheel and not Lo Cicero?


150 meters to go.


Napolitano goes backwards and Goss leads (right), slightly ahead of Lo Cicero (left). However, Ciolek is coming up the fastest.



Stage win Ciolek! The climax of stage 4 sees a fourth different stage winner at Taihu Lake. Ciolek repays his team's faith after they have set up a sprint train here more often than not, he wins by the better part of a bike length.

Lo Cicero didn't profit as much as Ciolek from Napolitano's sprint, however, his second place finish is good enough to see him leapfrog Vanderbiest, 7th, into the GC lead.

Cavendish, 3rd, finished very quickly to keep his GC hopes alive just ahead of Goss and Lavoine.


Maksimov: a bit down on the first 7 finishers.

The GC race gets more exciting but the whittling down process of GC contenders increases: only 9 riders are within '20 seconds now of the GC lead.