Gaviria wins his second stage as Van Avermaet retains Yellow Jersey

Gaviria beat Sagan, Geipel, Groenewegen, Kittel and Kristoff in a tightly contested sprint finish. Uran recovers from late crash to retain GC position. Ilnur Zakarin loses time.

Quick-Step Floors delivered their sprinter to the front of the pack. Greipel went first on the right hand side but Gaviria didn't panic and timed his final sprint to perfection, coming off his temmate's wheel and powering ahead.

It was a hot day on the 195 kilometre stage 4 between La Baule and Sarzeau, a flat route that was destined to come down to a sprint finish.

Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Want-Groupe Gobert), Jerome Cousin (Direct Energie), Dimitri Claeys and Anthony Perez (Cofidis) established the day's breakawy and built up a lead of over 8 minutes before the peloton started to chase.

It was a fairly uneventful day in the main peloton lead by Quick-Step Floors and BMC.

Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), Robert Gesink (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Tony Gallopin (AG2R La Mondiale) were involved a a small crash with 30 kms to go as the pace started to increased.

Flat out chasing the breakaway with four kilometres to go, there was a big crash that affected GC favorites Rigoberto Uran (EF Education First) and Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin). Uran quickly recovered losing a small amount of time, whereby Ilnur Zakarin lost nearly a minute. 

The last of the breakaway was caught at the flamme rouge and  Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe), Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) and Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) fought for the victory,  Colombian crossed the line just ahead as Quick-Step delivered him to the front of the bunch.

again Ilnur Zakarin was the biggest loser of the day crossing the line at just under a minute behind the peloton.

Greg Van Avermaet finished safely in the bunch and wears the Yellow Jersey for another day.

— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 10, 2018

2018 Tour de France Stage 4 Top Ten

1 Fernando Gaviria (Col) Quick-Step Floors 4:25:01 
2 Peter Sagan (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe   
3 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto Soudal   
4 Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo   
5 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Katusha-Alpecin   
6 Andrea Pasqualon (Ita) Wanty-Groupe Gobert   
7 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) UAE Team Emirates   
8 John Degenkolb (Ger) Trek-Segafredo   
9 Dion Smith (NZl) Wanty-Groupe Gobert   
10 Timothy Dupont (Bel) Wanty-Groupe Gobert

2018 Tour de France GC after Stage 4 

1 Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) BMC Racing Team 13:33:56 
2 Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team   
3 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:03 
4 Philippe Gilbert (Bel) Quick-Step Floors 0:00:05 
5 Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Quick-Step Floors 0:00:07 
6 Bob Jungels (Lux) Quick-Step Floors   
7 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:00:11 
8 Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) Team Sunweb   
9 Michael Matthews (Aus) Team Sunweb   
10 Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale 0:00:35