Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas delivered a dominant performance for the Sky team in the queen stage of the Paris-Nice when the pair reached the top of the Croix de Chaubouret together. The Australian led his teammate across the line while Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep) limited his losses sufficiently to take the leader’s jersey and now leads Porte by just a single second.

 

Two years ago Richie Porte laid the foundations for his overall win in Paris-Nice when he took a dominant solo victory in the queen stage of the race. After a one-year absence, he is back in France with the goal of reclaiming his crown and today he faced his first big test in the 2015 queen stage which finished at the top of the might Croix de Chaubouret climb.

 

Like two years ago Porte turned out to be the strongest rider in the race but this year it was an even better performance for Team Sky. Geraint Thomas was the only rider who managed to hang onto the Australian and crossed the line in second to make it a memorable 1-2 for the British team.

 

Sky had played with the muscles already from the lower slopes of the 10km ascent when Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) launched the first attack 9km from the finish. This was the signal for the Brits to kick into action and they lined up Lars Petter Nordhaug, Nicolas Roche, Thomas and Porte on the front.

 

The Norwegian set a blistering pace that was too much for one of the pre-race favourites. Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) was the first big name to lose contact while Tiralongo fought hard to maintain a very small advantage.

 

With 7km to go, it was over for the veteran Italian but Nordhaug didn’t react at all. The Norwegian just continued to power along while the group gradually got smaller and smaller.

 

With 6km to go, race leader Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE) cracked and even though Simon Clark tried to stay with him, there was no way he would get back. Moments later, Bob Jungels also lost contact.

 

With 4km to go, Nordhaug finished his work and this was the signal for Roche to take over. The Irishman upped the pace even further and several riders were now sent out the back door, with Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) being a notable victim.

 

Surprisingly, Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) cracked with 3km to go just as Sky were ready to play their next card. Thomas launched a powerful attack and was immediately joined by Jakob Fuglsang (Astana). For a long time, Simon Spilak (Katusha) fought hard to bridge the gap and he finally made it to make it a front trio.

 

Further back, the peloton had slowed completely down and this opened the door for Ruben Fernandez (Movistar) to attack. He was followed by Tejay van Garderen (BMC) while Rafael Valls started to chase for Lampre-Merida.

 

Looking over his shoulder, Fernandez hit van Garderen and he went to the ground hard just as Porte made an acceleration. The Australian made it across to van Garderen with a small group that also included Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida), Michal Kwiatkowski, Fabio Aru (Astana), Valls, Tony Gallopin, Tim Wellens (both lotto Soudal), Romain Bardet (Ag2r), Tiago Machado (Katusha) and Gorka Izagirre (Movistar.

 

Another accelerated by Porte briefly saw Van Garderen, Porte, Kwiatkowski, Bardet and Gallopin distance the rest but Aru, Valls, Costa, Izagirre and Machado managed to rejoin them. However, no one was willing to do any work and the front trio was still ahead.

 

With a little more than a kilometre to go, Porte made his move and only Kwiatkowski could stay with him. While van Garderen was in lone pursuit, they bridged the gap to the leaders and Porte made an immediate acceleration to go past them.

 

Impressively, Thomas managed to stay with him while van Garderen, Kwiatkowski and Fuglsang joined forces a bit further back. However, they were never getting any closer to the two Sky riders and Porte could pump his first as he led his teammate across the line. 8 seconds later Kwiatkowski beat Fuglsang in the sprint for third after van Garderen had lost a bit of ground.

 

That was enough for Kwiatkowski to take the overall lead back and he goes into stage 5 with a 1-second advantage over Porte. Thomas is two seconds further adrift and those three riders are more than 25 seconds ahead of the rest.

 

Kwiatkowski faces tricky test tomorrow on stage 5 which includes the famous Col de la Republique right from the start. After that challenge, the stage is mostly flat though, with just three smaller climbs. The final challenge comes with 8.5km to go and the final kilometre is all uphill with some pretty steep gradients, setting the scene for either the puncheurs or a breakaway.

 

The queen stage

After three stages for the sprinters, it was finally time for the GC game to start in stage 4 which was the queen stage of the race and brought the riders over 204km from Valennes-sur-Allier to a mountaintop finish on the Croix de Chaubouret. After a moderately hilly start with two small climbs, there riders entered a long flat section before they reached the hilly finale. Here they tackled three category 3 and two category 2 climbs before they went up the 10km ascent to the finish whose average gradient of 6.7% was set to do some serious damage.

 

The 157 riders took the start in foggy conditions but knew that the sun was going to shine brightly by the time they reached the finish. Mountain stages are often characterize by an attacking start but as it has been the case in the previous stages, the riders were content to let the break go clear immediately.

 

De Gendt attacks

Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) and Antoine Duchesne (Europcar) launched the first attack and they were chased by Chris Anker Sørensen (Tinkoff-Saxo) who was 10 seconds behind after a few kilometres of racing. The junction was made at the 5km mark and as the peloton showed no interest in chasing them down, they increased their advantage to 2.10 after 6km of racing.

 

The peloton was in no hurry and so the gap continued to grow. At the 10km mark, it was 4.35, after 12km of racing, it was 7 minutes and it even reached 7.45 4km later.

 

KOM points for De Gendt

The riders started the first climb with an advantage of 7.15 and here De Gendt led Duchesne and Sørensen over the top. The Belgian was again the fastest on the second climb where Sørensen took second ahead of Duchesne and now the trio were 8 minutes ahead.

 

Duchesne beat Sørensen and De Gendt in the first intermediate sprint while the chase in the peloton started to get organized. Astana took control of the situation and at the 93km mark, they had brought the gap down to 6.15.

 

Astana and Orica-GreenEDGE take control

The Kazakh team were joined by Orica-GreenEDGE and for a long time it was Laurens De Vreese (Astana) and Mitchell Docker and Christian Meier from the Australian team who set the pace. With 63km to go, they had brought the gap down to 5.00 when the riders entered the hilly zone.

 

De Gendt led Sørensen and Duchesne over the top of the third climb and the order was the same at the top of the fourth ascent. As a consequence, he took over the provisional lead in the mountains classification.

 

More points for De Gendt

With 53km to go, the gap was still around 4.30 when the escapees hit the Cote de la Gimond which was the first category 2 climb of the race. Duchesne was quickly dropped while De Gendt did all the work up the steep slopes.

 

At the top, however, Sørensen tried to pass him in the sprint and even though he failed, De Gendt got angry. The Belgian lost a small attack but the pair stayed together.

 

Bad luck for Majka

Behind, the elimination had started as lots of riders got dropped and it was now Meier and Michael Albasini setting the pace for Orica-GreenEDGE. At the top, Philippe Gilbert (BMC) moved ahead to pick up the 2 KOM points while his teammate Michael Schär took the final point on offer.

 

With 46km to go, Ag2r made a big acceleration with Johan Vansummeren and Samuel Dumoulin on the descent and this sent a big group of riders out the back door through the many technical turns. At this point, Majka suffered a very untimely puncture and he suddenly found himself in the second group.

 

Hard work by Ag2r

His teammates Michael Valgren, Michal Mørkøv and Matti Breschel all dropped back to help him and they got some welcome assistance from Greg Henderson, Marcel Sieberg and André Greipel when Tim Wellens suddenly also found himself in the group. With 36km to go, they finally made it back after Ag2r had stopped their acceleration, allowing Daryl Impey to set the pace for Orica.

 

The French team attacked again with Vansummeren and Dumoulin and their fast pace brought the gap down to just 2.25 with 35km to go. Again the elimination started and as they hit the second category 2 climb, lots of riders got dropped.

 

More bad luck for Majka

Majka had more bad luck when he was forced to change his bike and he spent almost the entire climb with Pawel Poljanski before he finally managed to rejoined the peloton. Meanwhile, Ben Gastauer had taken over the pace-setting for Ag2r.

 

De Gendt led Sørensen over the top while Gilbert again accelerated to be third, followed by Mikael Cherel and Jose Joaquin Rojas. Cherel started to work for Ag2r but as they hit the next climb, the French team stopped their attack.

 

Bad luck for Talansky

Ion Izagirre (Movistar) was the next rider to fight his way back to the peloton after a mechanical while De Gendt again led Sørensen over the top. Gilbert followed 1.15 later with the rest of the peloton in tow.

 

Etixx-QuickStep accelerated with Julian Alaphilippe and Michal Golas on the descent and again lots of splits occurred. With 19km to go, Talansky was hit by bad luck when he suffered a puncture and he spent most of the descent with his teammates Jack Bauer and Dylan van Baarle before he rejoined the group.

 

The break sits up

Sørensen led De Gendt across the line in the final intermediate sprint at the bottom of the descent but as the gap was only 25 seconds, they decided to sit up. Gilbert again sprinted ahead to take third in the sprint before Golas started to work for Etixx-QuickStep.

 

On a slightly rising road, several riders lost contact as Golas continued to ride on the front and the fight for position had now intensified. A crash brought down Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin) just as the riders had hit the slopes. Cherel started to work for Ag2r and moments later Tiralongo kicked off the finale by launching an attack.