Lotto's Andre Greipel won the fourth stage of the Tour De France this afternoon.
Today was a ride up the French coast nearest to the English Channel from Abbeville, through Dieppe before turing in land at Fecamp and finishing after 214.5km in Rouen.
The race started on a lovely day without JJ Rojas, Martin Tjallingi and Team Sky's Kanstanstin Sivtisov who all suffered broken bones in yesterday's stage.
Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar), David Moncoutie (Cofidis) and Anthony Delaplace (Saur-Sojasun shot away very early and were over seven and a half minutes clear with 130kms to go.
Moncoutie took the first climb at Cote du Mont Huon, the second at Cote de Dieppe and the third at Cote de Pourville Sur Mer on the D75, to move him up to second in the King of the Mountains jersey, amid some beautiful scenary.
The day's intermediate sprint in Fecamp saw Arashiro take the 20 points. Mark Cavendish sprinted at the front of the peloton to take 13 points.
Vincenzo Nibali and Jon Cantwell were amongst a number of riders who went down following a toucking of wheels with 41kms to go.
With the likes of BMC (pictured below) at the front, the gap came down and with five kilometres to go, the trio out front were a spent force.
Chavanel, only seven seconds down on race leader Fabian Cancellera, was in a trio of riders now on the front heading towards the finish line on the quai Jean Moulin at the end of a 750m long finishing straight.
GreenEdge took to the front of a fractured group which had a crash with 2.6kms to go. Robbie Hunter was one to go down, along with Mark Cavendish and Bernie Eisel (Pictured Below) who lost his front wheel.
Petacchi, Henderson, Peter Sagan and Andre Greipel battled it out and it was the German rider who took the victory in a time of 5;18;32 ahead of Petacchi and Tom Veelers.
Picture copyright of ASO
Cavendish got up and came in 4.44 down but as he went down inside the final three kilometres, he will get the same time before Eisel who had a small head wound.
Greipel said to Eurosport that he was so happy and so happy to have the riders who led him out.
Chris Froome finished 36th, Nicholas Roche 55th, Danny Martin 72nd, Steve Cummings 125th, Bradley Wiggins 154th, David Millar 155th and Mark Cavendish 188th.
Fabian Cancellera keeps his yellow jersey ahead of Bradley Wiggins by seven seconds.
Lotto keep their lead in the team classification
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Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM