Tour de France 2011: Cadel Evans denies Alberto Contador on stage four

• Evans edges 2010 champion in photo finish • Thor Hushovd hangs on to yellow jersey Australia’s Cadel Evans edged the defending champion Alberto Contador in a photo finish to win the fourth stage of the Tour de France as Thor Hushovd retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey. The 172.5-kilometre (107-mile) route from Lorient to Mur-de-Bretagne was mostly flat, but ended with a short, sharp climb favouring those that could muster bursts of speed uphill. The finish was so close that Contador raised his fist to celebrate what he believed was a stage win, but slow-motion video and a photo still showed that Evans, the two-time Tour runner-up, had won. The stage showed that Contador, who has faced a series of early setbacks on this Tour already, is in shape to compete. Hushovd narrowly kept the yellow jersey by trailing in a group not far behind, finishing sixth. Earlier, Jurgen Van de Walle of Belgium became the first rider to pull out of the race, reducing the field to 197 racers. His Omega Pharma-Lotto team said he quit due to lingering groin pain from a crash on Saturday. Stage four result 1 Cadel Evans (Australia, BMC Racing) 4hr 11min 39sec 2 Alberto Contador (Spain, Saxo Bank) same time 3 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan, Astana) 4 Rigoberto Uran (Colombia, Team Sky) 5 Philippe Gilbert (Belgium, Omega Pharma-Lotto) 6 Thor Hushovd (Norway, Garmin) 7 Fraenk Schleck (Luxembourg, Leopard) 8 Samuel Sanchez (Spain, Euskaltel) 9 Jurgen Van den Broeck (Belgium, Omega Pharma-Lotto) 10 Andreas Kloeden (Germany, RadioShack) Overall standings 1 Thor Hushovd (Norway, Garmin) 13hr 58min 25sec 2 Cadel Evans (Australia, BMC Racing) + 1sec 3 Fraenk Schleck (Luxembourg, Leopard) + 4sec 4 David Millar (Britain, Garmin) +8sec 5 Andreas Kloeden (Germany, RadioShack) +10sec 6 Bradley Wiggins (Britain, Team Sky) same time 7 Geraint Thomas (Britain, Team Sky) +12sec 8 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Norway, Team Sky) same time 9 Andy Schleck (Luxembourg, Leopard) 10 Jakob Fuglsang (Denmark, Leopard) Tour de France 2011 Tour de France Alberto Contador Cycling guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 5, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.