Greipel Wins Stage 4, Cav Crashes

Andre Greipel celebrates as he outsprinted Alessandro Petacchi

Andre Greipel, after falling short in the 2nd stage of the Tour de France, finally bagged his first stage win in sprint fashion. But the big news of the day was the crash that may have ended Mark Cavendish's defense of the green jersey (currently being held by Tourminator, Peter Sagan).

In the close-packed bunch, Robbie Hunter (Garmin-Sharp) pectacularly tumbled over his handlebars fracturing the peloton with around 2.7 kilometres to go of the 214.5km route from Abbeville.

Cavendish (Team Sky) was seeking to draw level with Lance Armstrong and Andre Darrigade by adding to his 21 Tour stage wins, but was seen gingerly picking himself up off the tarmac, his world champion's jersey in tatters and ripped across the back. [via The Guardian]

Seeing him crash breaks my heart

After Stage 3, Cav was on 73 points, trailing Peter Sagan, by 43 points. After Stage 4, Cav has 86, while Sagan is 61 points ahead. Cav is now in 4th place in the green jersey classification. This is not an insurmountable deficit but with 2 key factors in play - Team Sky's focus on the yellow jersey and the upcoming Olympic cycling event - Cav may not push himself hard enough to wear the green jersey after the Tour's end in Champs-Élysées. As a die-hard fan of the World Champion, this is really heartbreaking. But Stage 5 later will have a flat course over 196.5km from Rouen to Saint-Quentin. I'm hoping that Cav bags his 2nd stage win later!

For more Stage 4 video highlights, visit this site or watch the one over at The Guardian.