Tour de France 2014 Stage 4: surely another sprint victory for Marcel Kittel

Stage 4: from Le Touquet-Paris-Plage to Lille (163.5 km)

This looks on paper an easy day (163.5 km) across Northern France from the Channel Coast across to Lille, which includes a quick dip into Belgium. Very difficult to see beyond Marcel Kittel taking his third stage victory. In the absence of Mark Cavendish there doesn't seem to be anyone around to mount a serious challenge at the moment. Would Mark have pushed Marcel yeserday and won the stage? Impossible to know but Mark is certainly faster than both Peter Sagan (2nd) and Mark Renshaw (3rd) in a straight, flat sprint.  

Vincenzo Nibali is also very likely to keep the Yellow Jersey unless cross winds on the exposed roads across Northern France splits up the peloton. Tomorrow's stage across the pavé will surely shake up the Overall Classification. 

No doubt that the three days of Le Tour in the UK was a huge success with millions out to watch. Such a contrast to the miserable and disastrous first visit of the Tour to Britain in 1974. 

'Christian Prudhomme has said that the Tour de France will return to Great Britain following what he described as an “unbelievable” Grand Départ over the past three days.' Read the rest here road.cc Looks to be just a question of when and where. Edinburgh, whether Scotland is independent or not, will be looking to be the next city to get Le Tour.