The Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro, southwest France, has achieved many feats over the years, from touring car and track racing to the track record set 32 years ago by four-time Paracycling Olympic champion Alessandro Zanardi in his Formula 3000 car. The track record was set by Alessandro Zanardi in his F3000 machine 32 years ago. [The fast mini-train of Mathieu Van der Pol and Jasper Philipsen also won this year's Tour de France.

Van der Pol led the race just 330 meters from the end of the quiet 181.8 km stage, sending him off with 150 meters to go as crashes were common on the circuit's winding pavement.

Several riders fell to the ground along the way, but the most notable accident was Fabio Jacobsen's fall with 1.8 km to go. Jacobsen, the reigning European champion, was caught between the riders of Philipsen and Israel Premier Tech on the left curve of the circuit and fell.

Immediately after the finish, Bora-Hansgrohe fastman Danny van Poppel blamed Philipsen. The same goes for Jasper. He doesn't know what he is doing. But I'm not saying he did it on purpose.

At a press conference following the awards ceremony, where he wore the green jersey as the new leader of the points award, Philipsen refuted Jacobsen's suggestion that he caused the crash.

"I think I followed the team and of course I felt that Fabio was there.

"Certainly there was someone on the right side as well, so I don't know exactly what happened. We don't want to crash anyone. I want to have a fair sprint and I don't want to crash anyone."

Meanwhile, van der Pol, Philipsen's teammate, admitted that the circuit was dangerous.

"It was very dangerous," he said. In my eyes it was even more dangerous than yesterday, even though we were on a circuit." If you put a lot of curves in a normal road like yesterday, you will get comments. But they say it is allowed on the circuit."

The finish, where Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana Kazakstan), and Soren Wehrenskjold (Uno Ex) crashed, was not all spills and hard feelings.

Alpecin Deceuninck had a bit of a tussle, with Van der Pol moving aside Biniam Guillemay to make room for the race to unfold, but the hectic run to the line culminated in a brilliant run by Alpecin Deceuninck.

In fact, Van der Pol was later fined 500 Swiss francs and relegated from 16th to 22nd place after bumping into Guillemay.

"It wasn't a smooth lead-out like yesterday," he said. 'It was more hectic than I expected and we lost each other. On the last straight I was still finding Mathieu's wheel. With 150 meters to go he passed me. I didn't have much leg left, so it was just a short sprint. Caleb was so close

"This doesn't happen often. I am so happy and proud to have a lead-out with such a strong team. Even in a crazy situation like today, we managed to get to the front and sprint for the win.

"You can only do that when you have a strong team behind you. It is an honor for me that Mathieu was the last man standing. I don't think many other teams can say that. "

With two wins in two days and Ewan and Phil Bauhaus swapping places, Philipsen brings 150 green jersey points to the Pyrenees, 70 points ahead of second-place previous jersey holder Victor Lafaye, while Ewan is third with 73 points Yuan is in third place with 73 points.

With many sprint days left in this year's Tour, there are plenty of opportunities to close the gap to Philipsen.

"We need to see what is possible," said Philipsen. 'Today was a good day to take the green jersey, but it's only stage four. Today was a good day for the green jersey group, but it is stage four and there are many more stages to come. The real Tour de France has not started yet. We have a good advantage now and we want to protect it as much as possible

"It's definitely a goal to go for a third win, but I think we have to enjoy this. The Pyrenees are fast. We will know in three days how the legs feel after Tourmalet and the other climbs. The sprints are still to come and hopefully we will have the same result."