Another win for Degenkolb

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John Degenkolb (HTC-Highroad) gave a further demonstration of the extent of his sprinting repertoire with victory on stage four of the Critérium du Dauphiné. After dominating the uphill finish at Lyon on Monday, the German added his second win of the week by cruising past Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky) in a pure sprinters' finale in Mâcon.

Degenkolb's victory was born of a combination of power and impeccable timing, as he outpaced Boasson Hagen in the final 100 metres to claim the win. He ultimately finished over half a bike length clear of the Norwegian, while Juan José Haedo (Saxo Bank-SunGard) picked off third place. In spite of this ultimately comfortable margin of victory, Degenkolb didn't dare raise his arms until he was safely across the line.

"At the beginning of the sprint, my position wasn't very good," Degenkolb admitted afterwards. "But in the end, I had enough punch to come back to the front and win on the line.

"I beat sprinters who were counting on winning today, but that is not a surprise to me. I think that there will be other occasions when they will beat me, but to be faster than them, above all you need a huge degree of motivation."

The big losers of the day were Garmin-Cervélo, as their man Tyler Farrar failed to make any significant impact in the finishing straight. The men in black did much of the groundwork in shutting down the stage's sole breakaway move, with David Zabriskie and Johan Van Summeren very prominent, but a mix-up in the final kilometre would cost them dearly.

Julian Dean opened the sprint, ostensibly in the service of Farrar, but the canny Boasson Hagen had managed to squeeze his way in between the American and his lead-out man. When Dean eased up inside the final 400 metres, it was Boasson Hagen and not Farrar who careered off his right shoulder, and it briefly seemed as though the Norwegian was about to pull of a fine victory.

He reckoned without Degenkolb, however. The German was also lined up behind Dean, but he showed his intelligence in choosing to delay slightly before passing the New Zealander on his left hand side and unleashing his finishing speed. From there, it was a straight battle between Degenkolb and Boasson Hagen, with Haedo, Farrar and Tomas Vaitkus (Astana) left to fight over the scraps.

100 metres from home, Degenkolb came past Boasson Hagen, and although the Sky man admirably refused to fade, he was powerless in the face of Degenkolb's ferocious final effort, and the triumph marked Degenkolb's sixth win of a hugely successful debut campaign at HTC-Highroad.

Bradley Wiggins enjoyed an untroubled day in the yellow and blue jersey to maintain his lead of 1:11 over Cadel Evans. The real test for the Briton will come during the weekend's mountain stages, but he will surely have been pleased with how his Sky team controlled affairs today, with the effervescent Geraint Thomas very much to the fore.

"I was feeling my efforts from yesterday but the stage went very well for me," Wiggins said. "With two riders out in front, it suited me very well to control the race until Garmin took it up with 50km to go."

Roy and Malori get the day pass

A long flat stage the day after the time trial was always likely to see a heavy-legged peloton allow a breakaway sally clear in the opening kilometres before getting down to serious sprinting business in the finale. Just 4km in, Jeremy Roy (FDJ) duly obliged, jumping away from the slumbering bunch. Shortly afterwards, he was joined by promising rouleur Adriano Malori (Lampre-ISD) and the pair set about forging their way up to road.

At the summit of the 2nd category Col du Chat, a mere 13.5km into the stage, the duo already had a lead of 3:05, but with Sky on patrol at the head of the peloton, they were never given a huge amount of leeway. By the time Malori led Roy over the Côte de Peyzieu after 54km, their gap had only stretched out by a further minute, and in spite of their solid collaboration, Sky made sure that the advantage stayed around the four-minute mark for the next 70km or so.

The only aggressor in the main bunch was Leonardo Duque (Cofidis), who clipped off the front to take third place on each of the day's three categorised climbs to assume the lead in the king of the mountains classification, but the remainder of the peloton was happy to let Malori and Roy do all the racing until the hammer went down in the finale.

Aware that the flat run-in to Mâcon offered a rare opportunity for a bunch finish, Garmin-Cervélo took control of affairs at the head of the peloton in the finale 50km. The efforts of Johan Van Summeren and HTC-Highroad's Jan Ghyselinck saw the bunch begin to chip away at the break's lead at a rate of a minute every 10km, but a brief rally from Malori and Roy meant that they held a lead of over two minutes coming under the 20km to go banner.

Just as it seemed as though the Franco-Italian alliance might pull off an unlikely upset, however, David Zabriskie took charge of affairs at the head of the bunch. A searing 3km-long turn later, the gap to the leaders had almost been halved, and from there on in, the bunch finish was inevitable.

2.5km from the line, Malori and Roy were swallowed up by the bunch, and with Sky and Garmin-Cervélo combining to keep the pace high, nobody dared to even try and derail the sprinters' trains in the streets of Mâcon.

In the end, however, it was HTC-Highroad who had the winning hand, with Degenkolb ripping past Boasson Hagen to grab his second win in three days. While Mark Cavendish remains the undisputed head of the squad's hierarchy, no other team in the peloton can boast such a deep reservoir of sprinting talent, with Degenkolb the latest of a lengthy production line.

The sprinters will give way to the climbers for the remaining three stages, however, and race leader Bradley Wiggins is under no illusions about the task that faces him in the days to come. "The real Dauphiné starts tomorrow," he warned.

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