ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) — French cyclist Bryan Coquard won the fourth stage of the Tour Down Under on Saturday for his first-ever World Tour win while Australia’s Jay Vine retained the overall tour lead by 15 seconds with one stage remaining.
Coquard is a lightweight sprinter who has had 49 wins in a decade-long career but had never won on the World Tour until Saturday when he cleared out near the finish to claim the 133-kilometer (82-mile) stage by a margin of about 40 meters.
Vine was among the leading group that shared Coquard’s winning time and who retained his lead on general classification over Britain’s Simon Yates and Germany’s Phil Bauhaus. The race concludes Sunday with the fifth stage which ends atop 710-meter (2,329-foot) Mount Lofty.
“It’s a long time that I’ve waited for this win, 10 years,” said Coquard, who rides for the French Cofidis team. “I never really expected and I’m very happy and relieved with this win.”
While the stage was flat and suited sprinters, it had its challenges. Cross-winds and occasional gradients made the stage difficult and confounded some riders.
After an early breakaway by Jonas Rutsch and former tour winner Daryl Impey of South Africa, the peloton broke into two groups with Vine and other tour leaders among the leading group.
The leading group stayed together around the last, sharp bend towards the finish and Coquard bided his time until his late sprint left other riders flat-footed.
“It was pretty stressful,” Vine said. “There was one point there, I thought we were going to have an easy day and I was happy, smiling, waving to families on the side of the road.
“Then, 45 kilometers in it was on and it was on until the end so it was a very hard day. There was a lot more calorie expenditure than I was planning.”
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