Stage 4: Carcassonne → Foix

Mads Pedersen, Danish sprinter too often held back in the mountains, played the perfect game on this hilly stage: attached to a breakaway that held on until the end, he outsprinted Quinn Simmons and Raúl García Pierna in a small group at Foix. Surprise bonus: the yellow jersey leaves Pogacar's shoulders for those of Torstein Træen, while Pedersen takes the green jersey as a bonus.

In the contest, only one man dared to tick Pedersen as winner out of 178 participants: maxime patin. Just one. And it's him. 40 points picked up in one go, a performance that has the effect of a bombshell in the general standings. He had also sensed the winning breakaway, like a dozen other brave souls who swam against the current when three-quarters of the peloton were betting on a peloton comeback: Hubogoss, Marc_Verviers, AdamCed, Antoinelefebvre, BakkerS, Mich_Mich, Gigi, Lauragoffin, QVanDamme, JorGirar and KoenWeber all ticked "yes" to the breakaway, only 47 out of 178 having done so. NolanDerny, for his part, found Ramses Debruyne as best Franco-Belgian, an answer that only 1 player out of 178 found. Quite perceptive. As for the winner's nationality, only two had ticked Denmark: almost as rare a shot as the winner himself.

In the contest standings, the upheaval is total. maxime patin jumps 18 places to settle at the top with 91 points, 7 lengths ahead of KocJan (2nd, 84 pts, -1) and momo (3rd, 81 pts, -1) whose head-to-head duel is turned upside down overnight. maxime patin wears the contest's yellow jersey for the first time, and clearly, he didn't steal it. Lower down, the spectacular comebacks of this stage are dizzying: AdamCed climbs 60 places to 73rd position, Antoinelefebvre gains 46 to reach 68th, Gigi and VerKob each soar 44 ranks to land 58th tied. Special mention to LemWou, best comeback of the day with +61 places, now 104th overall.

A word for the silent majority: 157 players out of 178 leave without a single point from this stage, which proves that Pedersen had decided to make his little revolution all by himself. Next stage, we reset the counters... well, not quite: maxime patin has a seven-point lead, and he intends to keep the bib.