The race reached the halfway point with Wednesday’s fourth stage and ended in a mass sprint won by Nacer Bouhanni. Team Katusha’s Alexey Tsatevich, 25, once again was in the middle of the sprint action, taking his line up the middle to earn a fifth spot on the stage.

"It was a really good position for me. I started my sprint and did everything possible to be as close as possible to the leaders. Maybe I missed some power in my legs after a long day and the rain, so my legs didn’t responded as I had expected. But in general everything was ok today. I feel good and it looks like my form is coming up," said Alexey Tsatevich.

Joining Bouhanni on the podium were Jonas Van Genechten (IAM Cycling) and Luka Mezgec of Giant-Shimano. With the arrival of the group sprint, there was no change on the overall and Rohan Dennis (BMC) continues to lead on the classification. His teammate Tejay van Garderen is second on the same time and Andriy Grivko of Astana is third at 4-seconds.

Two Katusha’s riders, Tiago Machado and Joaquim Rodriguez are at 50th and 51st positions, respectively (+1.05).

Wednesday’s stage 3 from Anneyron (Porte de DrômArdèche) to Sisteron at 228 km was the longest of the week and saw two riders away in the opening kilometers. Martijn Keizer (Lotto NL-Jumbo) and Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto Soudal) established a maximum advantage of over 7 minutes and still held more than five at 35 km to go.

Many teams went to work to bring them back and near the finale the gap dropped quickly, especially as Van der Sande started to suffer and contribute less to the effort to stay away. Once the duo were on the final climb with 13 km to go, the gap was closed and attacks from the main field ended up bringing the groups together for the final. As dark clouds gathered and rain began to fall, it was a group sprint into Sisteron with Bouhanni emerging as the winner with a time of 5:30.53

Thursday’s stage 5 from Digne-les-Bains to Pra Loup at 161 km brings the first trip to the mountains.  It’s an uphill finish and time for the GC men to light up the 2015 edition of the Critérium du Dauphiné.