He may be the among the self-proclaimed veterans of this Tour de France and yet Nicolas Roche continues to act as if it's one of his first, riding impressively hard all the way to the first summit finish at Orcières-Merlette, less than 30 seconds off stage 4 winner Primoz Roglic from Team Jumbo-Visma, and gaining himself another four places in the process.
As expected the repeatedly steep 157 km from Sisteron to that first summit finish at Orcières-Merlette, which sits at 1,825m and was one of five categorised climbs inside the final 93km, tested the very best of them, Roglic springing off the front group in the last few metres to take the win in 4:07.47.
Roche, the 36-year-old from Team Sunweb riding in his 10th Tour, and 23rd Grand Tour in all, reached the line in 22nd place, just 28 seconds behind, moving him from 28th to 24th in the General Classification, just 45 seconds off the lead.
It wasn't such a good day for Dan Martin, who continues to struggle with the back injury sustained just two weeks before the start, as he was dropped 3.8km from the finish at Orcières-Merlette, before finishing in 53rd place, three minutes and nine seconds behind. However this did move the Israel Start-up Nation rider up from 98th to 74th, 21 minutes and nine seconds behind, so he did limit that damage too.
After coming so close to a first stage win on Monday, Sam Bennett was always going to struggle on this terrain, although he did make one impressive move to win the intermediate sprint after 51.5km at Veynes and with that goes level on points with Peter Sagan, both riders now with 83 points each; however Bennett remains some distance back, crossing the line in 169th, 21:56 back, and is now sitting 156th overall.
Sagan retained the green jersey for the 127th time in his career (including a record seven trips to the final podium as overall points classification winner in his career) given he remains ahead of Bennett in the GC, the Slovak rider sitting in 101st, although Bennett does appear to have put down something of a marker when it comes to fighting for that green jersey all the way to Paris.
Wednesday’s stage 5, from Gap to Privas covering 183km, looks like being another one for the outright sprinters, and one where Bennett might put down an even more important marker; a stage win.
