Time bonuses bring French sprinter close to overall victory
Björn Leukemans was crowned Tour du Limousin champion, having led the race since his victory on stage one. The final stage, between the Lacs de Haute Charente and Limoges was won by Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ), taking his second victory in succession, ahead of Jure Kocjan (Team Type 1-Sanofi-Aventis) and Leukemans himself. A ten-second bonus on the line meant that the French sprinter moved into second place overall but, with Leukemans finishing in the same time – and also taking four seconds for his third place – the Belgian’s yellow jersey was safe.
Almost immediately a group made up of Mikaël Chérel (AG2R La Mondiale), Yohann Gène (Europcar), Ben King (Team Type 1-Sanofi-Aventis), Anthony Roux (FDJ), Cyril Lemoine (Saur-Sojasun), Théo Vimpère (BigMat-Auber 93) and Anthony Colin (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) escaped. Less than 10km in though, and with the group’s lead approaching two minutes, Gène punctured and was forced to drop back to the peloton.
After 55km the group – now made up of six riders – was up to 4’50”, with Roux taking most of the prizes in the intermediate sprints, but the peloton then began to pull it back.
With 50km to go the gap was down to 45 seconds, as Colin was dropped from the group, and in the twenty kilometres Chérel, King and Lemoine were also dropped as Roux and Vimpère set off together.
With 30km to go Alexander Ryabkin (Caja Rural) jumped away from the Verandas Willems-Accent led peloton and made his way across to the leading duo. He caught up with 23km to go, but the three of them were now just 12 seconds clear, and with Leukemans’ Vacansoleil-DCM team joining the chase, it was all over with 20km to go.
There were further attempted breaks from Maxime Médérel (BigMat-Auber 93) and Vincent Jérôme (Europcar), then Cyril Bessy (Saur-Sojasun) and Sylvain Georges (BigMat-Auber 93), but the peloton entered the final ten kilometres all together.
Result stage 4
1 Matthieu Ladagnous (Fra) FDJ
2 Jure Kocjan (Slo) Team Type 1-Sanofi-Aventis
3 Björn Leukemans (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM
4 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis
5 Blel Kadri (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
6 Laurent Pichon (Fra) Bretagne-Schuller
7 Pierrick Fédrigo (Fra) FDJ
8 Jérémie Galland (Fra) Saur-Sojasun
9 Davy Commeyne (Bel) Landwouwkrediet
10 Bert De Waele (Bel) Landbouwkrediet
Final overall standings
1 Björn Leukemans (Bel) Vacansoleil-DCM
2 Matthieu Ladagnous (Fra) FDJ @ 7s
3 Florian Guillou (Fra) Bretagne-Schuller @ 13s
4 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Cofidis @ 18s
5 Thomas Degand (Fra) Verandas Willems @ 24s