Cycling: Chris Froome maintains Dauphine lead

Chris Froome overcame a punctured tyre to maintain his overall lead of the Criterium du Dauphine. Froome, the defending Dauphine and Tour de France champion, changed his bicycle following a puncture with 33km left in the stage, but managed to keep a 12 seconds ahead of Alberto Contador at the end of the day. Geraint Thomas did the dirty work to get Froome back into the peloton after the puncture. Wednesday's 167.5km fourth stage from Montelimar to Gap was won by Russia's Yury Trofimov, who finished 23 seconds clear of Sweden's Gustav Larsson. The group including Trofimov broke away from the peloton with 21km to go and the Katusha rider went clear on his own just three kilometres later as the fugitives climbed the Col de Manse. This was the second Dauphine stage win for the 30-year-old Russian, six years after his first. "The breakaway wasn't really dangerous. We mainly wanted to control it and didn't take any risk in the final descent," said Froome at the end of the stage. "The team did great work, I had three riders with me until the line." The Criterium du Dauphine is the perfect warm-up race for the Tour de France, here are the current outright win odds for the big French competition at Bet365: Chris Froome - 4/7 Alberto Contador - 12/5 Vincenzo Nibali - 8/1 Alejandro Valverde - 18/1 Tejay Vangarderen - 40/1