In Rouen everyone was waiting for his encore, powerful in his rainbow jersey, instead the one who crosses the finish line of the fourth stage of the Tour, pedaling slowly and all alone, is a disappointed and bruised Mark Cavendish. Once again in the last three kilometers we had to witness a general tumble, in which it was the world champion who paid the price among the big names. The torn shirt, a sore shoulder, Cavendish should still be able to start again tomorrow. Via Cannonball, with the group split into several sections, the stage was played by André Greipel and Alessandro Petacchi with a sprint resolved on the wire in favor of the German sprinter of Lotto. Good second for the Tuscan sprinter from Lampre who is recovering his form from stage to stage so as to precede Matthew Goss himself and the ever more surprising Peter Sagan, who with a circus act avoided ending up on the ground in the general fall one step away from the finish line. Fabian Cancellara also found his way blocked by a tangle of bikes and bodies and arrived delayed. But as happened yesterday for Wiggins in Boulogne-sur-Mer, the jury neutralized all the laggards' times as the accident occurred in the last 3 meters of a non-mountain stage. Thus Cancellara kept the yellow jersey, his twenty-sixth in his career, with a 7” lead always up Bradley Wiggins and Sylvain Chavanel, that with Vockler in crisis he has become the "standard-bearer" of French cycling which has never denounced a lack of protagonists as in recent years. And there is no better city than Rouen to trigger memories and regrets of a glorious past for transalpine cycling. If for history Rouen is the city where Joan of Arc was burned, where Pierre Corneille and François Hollande were born, for cycling enthusiasts Rouen is the city of Jacques Anquetil, who was born nearby and died there on November 18, 1987 just 53 years old. The Tour remembered him today, the blond Jacquot, the great champion, whom France never loved to the end, preferring his rival, even if always a loser, that Raymond Poulidor, the eternal second who was there, together with other champions such as Bernard Hinault, to honor the opponent of many Tours.
Tomorrow the fifth stage, the Rouen-Saint Quentin of 196.5 kilometres. Flat stage that shouldn't give any shock to a ranking, which without bonuses, is stuck at the one set by the prologue time trial in Liege. The only risk more than the wind are the narrow streets, the roundabouts and the traffic reservations: many pitfalls that threaten new crashes such as the one which, about forty kilometers from Rouen, forced Vincenzo Nibali to make an additional effort to catch up with the group of the best who was canceling the advantage, which reached up to about 8', of the two Frenchmen Moncoutié and Dalaplace who started in the break immediately after the start together with the Japanese Arashiro. For the record, the latter has been a virtual yellow jersey for a long time. Cancellara, the true yellow jersey, should therefore not struggle to defend the lead in the next few days, at least until Saturday when the uphill finish at La Planche des belles filles is scheduled. But the Swiss, as well as being a champion, is tough. And he will do everything to stay in yellow. They don't call him "Spartacus" for nothing.
