TOUR DE FRANCE 2023 – STAGE 4
DAX – NOGARO

3+1: NAILING THEM
4th stage win for Jasper Philipsen: he is the first rider with back-to-back wins at the Tour since Tadej Pogacar won the 6th and 7th stage last year.
The last rider to nail two wins in a row in bunch finishes had been Dylan Groenewegen in Chartres and Amiens, 7th and 8th stage of 2018.
Excluding consecutive stages, but considering only bunch finishes, Philipsen is at his 4th consecutive win, a streak last recorded in 2017 when Marcel Kittel won in Troyes, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Bergerac and Pau.
(Last year, the Cahors stage was also suited for the sprinters, but Christophe Laporte was able to anticipate them)

51: LET’S PICK UP THE SPEED!
Without attackers to lead the way, the peloton took it easy in the first 20km of the stage, covered with an average speed of 36.2km/h, according to the speeds recorded by NTT Data.
The pace increased when Benoît Cosnefroy and Anthony Delaplace set off after the intermediate sprint, covering the next 60km at 44.7km/h to try and resist the peloton.
But the sprinters were determined to battle it out, so much so that they covered the last 20km at 51.7 km/h – 15.5km/h faster than the first 20km!

3X4: POINTS CHANGES
Adam Yates, Victor Lafay, Jasper Philipsen: three different points leaders in the first four stages is more than for the whole Tours de France 2021 (2 leaders) and 2022 (2 leaders). And so much changes in the early days is unprecedented since 2017, when Geraint Thomas was in green after the first stage, Marcel Kittel in the 2nd and 3rd and Arnaud Demare in the fourth.

3&4: MEETING IN THE TOP-3
Yesterday’s finish: Philipsen, Bauhaus, Ewan. Today: Philipsen, Ewan, Bauhaus.
Before yesterday, these three had never shared a podium in a pro race, now they nail two in two days.

2005: THE BELGIAN SPRINTER WE MISSED
Excluding time trials, Jasper Philipsen is the first Belgian to import back-to-back stages since 2005 (Tom Boonen in Les Essarts and Tours).

2018: THE GERMAN SPRINTER WE MISSED
Phil Bauhaus is the first German sprinter with two top-3 finishes in a single Tour since 2018, when John Degenkolb nailed 3 (3rd in Amiens, winner in Roubaix, 2nd in Paris)

11: DELAPLACE 11 YEARS LATER
Anthony Delaplace conquered his first Tour de France climb in 11 years. The previous had been the Cote de Toussaint in the Abbeville-Rouen stage of 2012. That was on the 4th of July as well.

10: MAKING IT A 10
Bryan Coquard (4th) scored his 10th top-5 finish at the Tour, and he is still looking for his first win. José Rojas, among the active riders, scored 14 (5 3rd places, 4 4ths, 5 5ths), and the record belongs to Gilbert Desmet, with 25. The Frenchman will keep on trying, to add a Tour stage to his palmarès made of 51 pro wins so far. He took his first World Tour win this year at the Tour Down Under, so he is ready for his Grand Tour stage win!

5: A FIRST SINCE 2012?
Adam Yates took his tally of yellow jerseys in this Tour to 4. Tomorrow is out to be the first rider to nail at least 5 since 2012, when Fabian Cancellara was in Jaune for the first 7 stages.
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