{"id":2030378,"date":"2026-07-06T15:43:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2030378"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:43:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:43:29","slug":"tour-de-france-stage-4-preview-the-first-fully-french-day-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2030378","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France Stage 4 Preview: The First Fully French Day of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/stage-4.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"content-wrap fp-contentTarget\">\n<div class=\"article-body\">\n<div class=\"mb-base-loose flex flex-wrap gap-(--spacing-base)\">\n<div class=\"fp-remove flex items-center justify-start gap-(--spacing-base-tight)\"><span class=\"font-utility-2 font-bold text-primary\">Jim Cotton<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"pub-date font-utility-2 text-secondary\">Updated July 6, 2026 02:19PM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Carcassone \u2013 Foix: 181.9km \/ 2,700m+<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bonjour!<\/p>\n<p>The carnival begins properly on stage 4. Rolling out of the medieval city of Carcassone, this stage across the hills of the Ari\u00e8ge is the first fully-French day of the\u00a0Tour de France.<\/p>\n<p>What to expect? It\u2019s very hard to say with four medium profile categorized climbs in store, none greater than category 2.<\/p>\n<p>The lumpy middle of the stage could be too hard for the pure heavy sprinters. Tim Merlier and Jasper Philipsen might not even bother given they\u2019re being served a pancake-flat sprint a day later on stage 5.<\/p>\n<p>However, the more versatile speedsters could see a glimmer of opportunity in the downhill and flat finale. That is, if the GC hopefuls are content to let anyone have an opportunity; they\u2019ve hotly contested the first two road stages of this Tour, starting the yellow jersey fight well before the hardest mountain stages.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad-placeholder-wrapper relative w-full border-t border-b border-border-light col-span-full my-3 md:col-span-10 md:col-start-2\">\n<div class=\"mb-[30px] min-h-[30px] text-center\"><span class=\"font-utility-4 font-medium tracking-[1px] text-neutral-500 uppercase\">ADVERTISEMENT<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The section will be made on the tricky final climb to Col de Monts\u00e9gur. Anyone still in contention at the summit could see victory 35km later.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Start<\/strong>:\u00a07:10 a.m. ET<\/li>\n<li><strong>Est. Finish<\/strong>:\u00a011:23 a.m. ET<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-body\">\n<div class=\"mb-base-loose flex flex-wrap gap-(--spacing-base)\">\n<div class=\"fp-remove flex items-center justify-start gap-(--spacing-base-tight)\"><span class=\"font-utility-2 font-bold text-primary\">Jim Cotton<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"pub-date font-utility-2 text-secondary\">Updated July 6, 2026 02:19PM<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/tour-de-france-stage-4-preview-2026\/&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/stage-4.jpg&#8221;] Jim Cotton Updated July 6, 2026 02:19PM Carcassone \u2013 Foix: 181.9km \/ 2,700m+ Bonjour! The carnival begins properly on stage 4. Rolling out of the medieval city of Carcassone, this stage across the hills of the Ari\u00e8ge is the first fully-French day of the\u00a0Tour de France. What to expect? It\u2019s very hard [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2030378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2030378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2030378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2030378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2030378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}