Marcel Kittel won stage four of the Tour de France in Limoges in another photo finish, while Dan Martin slipped three places in the overall classification follwoing today's fourth stage.
A day after pictures were needed to separate Mark Cavendish from Andre Greipel in Angers, Etixx-QuickStep's Kittel took it by the finest of margins from Bryan Coquard of Direct Energie.
Peter Sagan crossed the line in third to retain the yellow jersey while Mark Cavendish, winner of two of the first three stages, came home in eighth.
Dan Martin lost four seconds on the leader and slips three places to 13th overall, while Sam Bennett continues to struggle after his crash on day one.
The Bora-Argon rider finished just under nine minutes behind the first cross the finish line today, finishing ahead of Michael Morkov in final place today.
Wie knapp war das denn? @marcelkittel nach der längsten Etappe der Tour um Millimeter vor @bryancoquard. #TDF2016 pic.twitter.com/3lMhnbreYo
— Tour de France - DE (@letour_de) July 5, 2016
Today’s stage was the longest of the 2016 Tour at 237.5km from Saumur.
After the riders took nearly six hours to cover the 223.5km from Granville to Angers yesterday, the pace was thankfully faster 24 hours later - in large part thanks to a stronger breakaway.
Markel Irizar (Trek-Segafredo), Oliver Naesen (IAM Cycling), Andreas Schillinger (Bora-Argon 18), and Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale) went up the road early, building a lead that maxed out at six minutes.
That gap began to fall 100km out, and dropped up under two minutes with 50km left.
Gougeard was the first to be dropped, with the remainder swept up on a short hill seven kilometres from home.
