Tour de France: stage four – live updates | Tour de France 2023

113km to go: “It’s a shame Thomas De Gendt isn’t in it this year as I doubt he would have been able to put up with this,” writes Jem Lee. “It might allow Cav to save his legs but not sure what anyone really gains from a day like this. I just hope they are all focused at the pointy end of the race because this is like a Sunday afternoon out.”

Jem speaks truth. Up with this nonsense serial breakaway merchant Thomas De Gendt certainly would not put, while his part namesake Thomas Voeckler wouldn’t stand for it either. We clearly need more men named “Thomas” in the peloton to avoid days like this.

117km to go: After that brief moment of excitement, things settle down again. “Do the riders not even feel slightly guilty about the lack of entertainment on offer today for the viewers at home?” asks Natasha Young. “I know it’s a sport and not a variety show but holy moly. I’ve never been a big fan of sprint stages but this is the biggest snooze fest I can recall. Were I a team sponsor, I’d be less than impressed. If the Netflix doc crew are there, they’ll need to get creative if they want to include this stage.”

118km to go: “Maybe all of the Americans from every team could take a turn out front in honor of our holiday,” writes Susan Sanders. “Considering the state of things here, we could use a bit of a lift.”

121km to go: Jumbo-Visma’s Wout van Aert moves to the front of the bunch, injects some pace and is joined by – get this – several of his compatriots from Belgium. The peloton splits briefly but soon reforms.

122km to go: Arguably the most uneventful and boring stage in Tour de France history continues, but at least we have the promise of a cracking sprint finish to look forward to, assuming everyone involved can stay awake.

“On the subject of breakaways made up of rides from a single country,” writes David Alderton. “In 2021 the Belgian riders did very much the same in Paris-Nice on a quiet day. Gilbert was involved. I think there was an extra rider in there who was not from Belgium but they let him come along as he could speak Flemish.”

126km to go: “Given that none of the teams seem interested in any rider making a break, could today’s approach be a protest to the layout of the final few KMs of yesterday’s stage?” asks Neil Mackie.

“U-turns, low level street furniture, roundabouts and that curved finish, which also seemed to nearly cause Philipsen to crash into the barriers by himself (ignoring any deviation to prevent Wout van Aert going up the inside) … I doubt any of that pleased the teams since they all had representatives jostling in the washing machine of the peloton. I imagine we’ll see a sprint for the intermediate points, a small break for KoM points and then it will all settle down until the final 3k.”

I don’t think this is any sort of unofficial protest. According to Eurosport’s Philippe Gilbert, who knows all these lads very well, loads of the riders he’s been talking to as they go back to their team cars for refreshments want to launch attacks but their team directors won’t let them.

127km to go: “I sense some exasperated ennui on your part,” writes Paul Griffin. “Perhaps rather than thinking of this as a drab, tedious, soporific non-event, might I suggest you frame the lack of action as a rather beautiful Beckettian meditation on the essential futility of life? I’m personally waiting for Gaudu, rider No31, to attack.”

130km to go: Groupama-FDJ take over at the front of the unch, which is barreling along in extremely relaxed fashion at 43km per hour. Short of stopping at a roadside café for a couple of beers, it’s difficult to imagine how the 174-strong field could be more relaxed.

135km to go: The former rider Philippe Gilbert has the fun job of roving reporter following the race on the back of a motorbike for Eurosport and has just revealed that a number of his Belgian compatriots from assorted teams had been conspiring to launch a breakaway just for the hell of it, but upon suggesting the possibility to their team bosses had been told not to.

Race radio: The directeur sportif of DSM-Firmenich has some instructions for his team. ““Okay guys, let’s get together now, get in position, let’s start to take our spot,” he says.

After a lengthy pause he says: “I’m joking! For those who are worried, we need to wait a bit longer.”

It’s not just the riders who are taking the micky this afternoon.

147km to go: Led by Kasper Asgreen, a trio of riders from Soudal-Quick Step are towing the peloton along, with a few of their colleagues from Alpecin-Deceuninck tucked in behind them. They’re travelling at 36km per hour.

154km to go: The peloton is strung out like clothes on a washing line as we await the first attack of the day, while talk on Eurosport turns to yesterday’s sprint finish in which a bend in the final couple of hundred metres and some wayward barrier-placing led to Wout van Aert running out of road to sprint down as he tried to get up the inside of Jasper Philipsen, who won the stage.

Van Aert was forced to check his sprint in a manner others might not have ands following a lengthy stewards’ enquiry by the race jury, Philipsen was correctly adjudged not to have deviated from his racing line and kept the stage win. Fabio Jakobsen, who almost lost his life and had to go undergo facial reconstruction surgery after being put into the barriers in similar – but not identical – circumstances at last year’s Tour of Poland was critical of the placement of yesterday’s finish line.

“It’s just not nice for cycling, I think,” he said. “The parcours builder and the organiser really have to look into this, that on the first bunch sprint like that, when they are so many guys involved – it’s almost not a fair sprint.”

157km to go: As things stand, the peloton is already almost 10 minutes behind the slowest possible schedule envisaged by the Tour organisers, who can’t possibly be happy with the manner in which today’s non-event is not really unfolding. Here’s hoping they have floodlights at the finish line in Nogara.

166km to go: Nothing is happening and it looks set to continue not happening for the next four hours. Today’s finish is on a motor racing circuit in Nogaro and despite being a rouleur rather than a sprinter, Lidl-Trek rider Quinn Simmons has form in the field of winning on such a surface.

In January, the American pulled off a major shock by launching an attack with 500m to go in stage three of the at the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina and managed to hold off the sprinters to pull off a victory that he said “might have saved my career”. It was a stage that began and ended on the motor-racing circuit at Villicum. Asked this morning if his team boss had given him permission to try to replicate his effort at a finish that is practically identical, the man tasked with riding in the service of Mads Pedersen said he’d suggested it but the answer was a resounding: “No”.

167km to go: This just in from the Bahrain Victorious on the race radio: “Nobody wants to go in the breakaway today, apparently. Push somebody out, huh! Push somebody to go.” A message for race director Christian Prudhomme, perhaps?

168km to go: We have an attack … of sorts. Possibly out of boredom, four riders jump off the front of the bunch but are quickly reined in.

169km to go: In situations like this where literally nobody is actually making an effort to attack, it is not unheard of for race directors to get in touch with various team managers to tell them to send somebody off an attack. There’s no sign of that happening here … yet.

170km to go: The peloton continues to dawdle along at a leisurely pace, riders are already stopping for comfort breaks and after yesterday’s heroic effort the Eurosport commentary team are already struggling to come up with things to talk about. In stark contrast, plenty of the cyclists are deep in conversation. This must be the stuff of the Tour organisers’ nightmares.

177km to go: The peloton continues to meander along the road out of Dax without anyone showing the slightest inclination to attack. This could be an exceptionally long afternoon. Given some of the smaller teams are only on the Tour because they’ve been given invitations, you could be forgiven for thinking they might feel compelled to appoint a couple of volunteers to go up the road to (a) liven things up a little bit and (b) garner some publicity for their sponsors.

They’re off and racing in stage four!

Stage four is under way: The riders have set off from Dax in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France but are still in the neutral zone and have yet to be given the signal to start racing. Here’s hoping for a more substantial breakaway than the two-man effort we got yesterday.

Christian Prudhomme on stage four: “The stage is set for a rematch between the sprinters, but the hilly terrain of the Gers could also suit a small breakaway group,” writes the race director in the Tour handbook. “Their cooperation would have to be total to hold off the peloton, while the finish on the Nogaro motor-racing circuit will provide the stage winner with a success with a rare flavour. The peloton’s speedsters will certainly want to go head to head on the final 800-metre straight.”

General Classification: the top five

William Fotheringham on stage four: Even flatter than Monday, so another bunch sprint day; for the overall contenders it’s again about staying upright. A north wind may liven things up, but it’s more likely to be a slog through the heat before Mark Cavendish, Fabio Jakobsen, Caleb Ewan, Dylan Groenewegen and company fight it out. Big question: will Jumbo-Visma let Van Aert join in, or will he save his strength to support Jonas Vingegaard when the race enters the Pyrenees?

Philipson survives sprint scrutiny to win in Bayonne

Stage four: Dax to Nagaro (181.8km)