Tour de France Stage 4: Primoz Roglic takes first summit finish (+ video highlights)

Primoz Roglic of Jumbo-Visma, who started the Tour de France on Saturday as favourite to win the overall title this year, has won the first summit finish of the race at Orcieres-Merlette today.

The Slovenian beat his compatriot Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates to the line, with Guillaume Martin of Cofidis third, followed in the same group by all the main contenders for the overall.

Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-Quick Step remains in the overall leader's yellow jersey at the end of the 160.5km stage from Sisteron.

Mitchelton-Scott's Adam Yates remains second overall, 4 seconds off the lead, with Roglic moving to 3rd, a further 3 seconds back.

Vuelta champion Roglic’s victory over Pogacar, who finished third in the Spanish Grand Tour last year at the age of 20, will do much to answer doubts over his condition following his crash at the Criterium du Dauphiné last month.

His win was the fruit of a team effort to keep the break in check and then, once the final escapee was brought back early on the final climb, set the pace at the front of the group.

Cofidis rider Martin attacked coming under the flame rouge but was quickly brought back, before Roglic launched his stage winning attack.

Most of his main rivals finished on the same time – Roglic, of course, profits from 10 bonus seconds for winning – , including defending champion Egan Bernal but his Ineos Grenadiers deputy Richard Carapaz lost 28 seconds, as did Dani Martinez and Sergio Higuita of EF Pro Cycling.

Emanuel Buchmann of Bora-Hansgrohe, fourth overall last year, shipped 9 seconds, as did Alejandro Valverde and Enric Mas of Movistar.

Reaction

Stage winner, Primoz Roglic 

It was a fast and quite difficult stage. The guys always kept me in a good position. Everyone was very strong. In the end I was able to deliver a nice sprint. I am very happy with that. We all arrived safely and we won. We must continue on this path. I feel better every day. In the second stage I already felt that it is all good.

Overall leader Julian Alaphilippe

The main goal of our team was to control the race and keep the jersey. The guys did an amazing job and I’m very proud of them. In the end, I would have liked to win, but the tempo was very high in the closing kilometers and I was a bit on the limit.

I’m not disappointed, others were just stronger today. Having the yellow jersey makes me very happy, every day I spend in it gives me a lot of joy and satisfaction and I hope my run will continue.