Stage Four was the first criterium of the Tour and having Aaron Kemps fresh of some good form from the Tour of China, he was our man guy for the win. The course was pretty tricky, with a little bit of elevation gain and a couple of tight off camber corners. Being only 42km and plenty of time bonuses up for offer it was aggressive right from the gun. Breaks would form but nothing too major until around 18 laps to go a decent group got off the front which looked like it could stay away. From 16 to go Tito and I swapped off the front and by 6 to go I was starting to die. From then out the big man Sully and J-Walk took over, closing the gap and setting up Kemps perfectly for the win. Three stages in a row! Cam stayed safe in yellow and once again it was going to be all hands on deck in defending that lead in the afternoon stage.
Photo Credit: Goss/Licorice Gallery
Looking at the profile of the day I would say this was going to be the “easiest” stage of the tour. With another difficult climbing day looming on Friday, we were pretty keen not to go too deep and run out of legs before the week was out. The plan was to let a break go up the road that were no significant threat on GC, and let the other teams who wanted the stage wins do the majority of the leg work. Things worked out pretty much to plan and although we spent a far amount of time on the front we kept the intensity pretty low.
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