Primoz closes gap on leader

PRIMOZ Roglic reaffirmed his status as the Tour de France favourite as he won stage four to close the gap on Julian Alaphilippe in the yellow jersey.

The Slovenian’s crash at the Criterium du Dauphine last month had raised questions over his fitness coming into the Tour but the way in which he sprang forward from his rivals to take victory ahead of countryman Tadej Pogacar seemed to answer them.

Alaphilippe was fifth and Britain’s Adam Yates 10th to ensure there was no change at the very top of the standings – in which Alaphilippe leads Yates by four seconds – but Roglic moved up to third, seven seconds back, with the bonuses from his victory.

“I feel every day a little better,” Roglic said. “I’m still not totally the same but I felt the second stage showed I could still ride a bike so I need to enjoy that, stay focused and do the same like we did until now for these three weeks.”

The 160.5km stage from Sisteron to Orcieres-merlette saw the Tour dip a toe into the Alps unusually early and cap it with a summit finish, though the final climb was not one to compare with those to come in the third week of this race.

Alaphilippe’s DeceuninckQuickstep team sought to control the pace as soon as the road began to ramp up, with Roglic’s JumboVisma squad then helping to keep the pace strong to stifle the chances of attacks. As the gradient eased near the summit, Cofidis’ Guillaume Martin attacked and it was Roglic who had the legs to get away as defending champion Egan Bernal and others simply tried to hang on. Bernal came home in seventh, not losing any time on the road but seeing his deficit in the general classification grow to 17 seconds once bonuses are applied.