Tour de France chaos as police arrest knife-wielding man during cycling showpiece

Police have apprehended a man who was wielding a knife on the Tour de France route, according to French media.

The incident occurred near the finish line of the fourth stage of the iconic event from Amiens to Rouen. Valeurs Actuelles said that a police officer suffered a minor hand injury during the incident.

According to French media the incident took place around 3:30pm at the Saint-Hilaire roundabout, near Boulingrin, which is the finish line of Tuesday's stage. That is two hours before the peloton reached the finish line.

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Reports added that officers quickly intervened to "neutralise" the man who was "making threats" and the stage continued as normal with the peloton reeling in a five-man breakaway on their approach to Rouen.

Dutch superstar Mathieu van der Poel was wearing the yellow jersey coming into the fourth stage, six seconds clear of race favourite Tadej Pogacar with his biggest challenger Jonas Vingegaard a further four seconds back.

And the big three arrived at the finish line together with Slovenian star Pogacar taking the sprint by a handful of centimetres to land the 100th win of his career and claim yellow. Van der Poel was second with Vingegaard just behind. The breakout British star Oscar Onley was in fourth place.

Pogacar is the fourth youngest cyclist in history to reach 100 wins with 18 of those now coming in stages at the Tour. He is already a three-time winner of the sport's biggest race.

Sprinter Jasper Philipsen, who was in the green jersey, was forced to withdraw yesterday following a horror accident that left him hospitalised, joining Filippo Ganna and Stefan Bissegger who crashed out on Saturday's opening stage.

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