Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) won stage 4 of the Circuit de la Sarthe from Angers to Pré-en-Pail as the fastest of a large group of breakaway riders. He beat Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun) and Xaier Florencio (Cervélo TestTeam) into second and third.
Piet Rooijakkers (Skil-Shimano), Yuriy Krivtsov (AG2R-La Mondiale), Yannick Talabardon (Saur-Sojasun) and Jeff Louder (BMC Racing) escaped after just 7km of the 181.1km stage. Their lead peaked at 5 minutes at the 33k mark before stabilising at 4’30”, after work from the Caisse d’Epargne team of race leader Luis Leon Sanchez.
The leaders stayed together until they reached the five 8.6km finishing circuits, when Talabardon and Krivtsov dropped the other two. With less than 40km to go Thomas Voeckler (Bbox-Bouyges Telecom) attacked the peloton and managed to bridge across to the leaders. The 2008 race winner managed to drop the others as the peloton pulled the others back.
As it looked as though the peloton was about to swallow Voeckler, his Bbox-Bouyges Telecom teammate Cyril Gautier jumped ahead to join him. Several riders managed to jump off the front of the bunch, and Pierrick Fedrigo, another Bbox-Bouyges Telecom rider, escaped on his own. Behind him Voeckler and Gautier were joined by Florencio and Christophe Riblon (AG2R-La Mondiale).
A group of 24 riders that had detached from the front of the peloton caught up with the five breakaway riders inside the final kilometre, and Dumoulin was the fastest to the line.
Luis Leon Sanchez managed to finish in the front group and so retains his overall lead going into tomorrow’s final stage.
Result stage 4
1. Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, le credit en ligne
2. Julien Simon (Fra) Saur-Sojasun
3. Xavier Florencio (Spa) Cervélo TestTeam
4. Romain Hardy (Fra) Bretagne-Schuller
5. Matej Gnezda (Slo) Adria Mobil
6. Christophe Riblon (Fra) AG2R-La Mondiale
7. Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux
8. Thierry Hupond (Fra) Skil-Shimano
9. Romain Lemarchand (Fra) Big Mat-Auber 93
10. Pierrick Fedrigo (Fra) Bbox-Bouyges Telecom
Standings after stage 4
1. Luis Leon Sanchez (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne