Fougeres (France), June 29 (IANS) British cyclist Mark Cavendish won his first stage at Tour de France in five years when he clinched Stage Four on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old, who clinched his 31st stage at the Tour, took 3 hours 20.17 mins to complete the 150.4 km stage from Redon to Fougeres and finished ahead of Frenchman Nacer Bouhanni and Belgian Jasper Philipsen.

As many as 177 cyclists took part in the stage.

Mathieu van der Poel of the Netherlands kept the yellow jersey which is given to the overall leader.

"I do not know what to say, man. Just being here is special enough," said Cavendish, who is three stage wins short of former Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx's all-time record of 34.

"I did not think I would ever get to come back to this race. Fire man, just fire from the whole team. We did not know if we were going to get them," added Cavendish.

"So many people didn't believe in me, and these guys do and they did," he said further.

Stage four results
1. Mark Cavendish (GB/Deceuninck-Quick-Step) 3hrs 20mins 17secs
2. Nacer Bouhanni (Fra/Arkea Samsic)
3. Jasper Philipsen (Bel/Alpecin-Fenix)
4. Michael Matthews (Aus/BikeExchange)
5.Peter Sagan (Svk/Bora-Hansgrohe)

Overall leaders after Stage 4
1. Mathieu van der Poel (Ned/Alpecin-Fenix) 16hrs 19mins 10secs
2. Julian Alaphilippe (Fra/Deceuninck-Quick-Step) +8 secs
3. Richard Carapaz (Ecu/Ineos Grenadiers) +31secs
4. Wout van Aert (Bel/Jumbo Visma) Same time
5. Wilco Kelderman (Ned/Bora-Hansgrohe) +38secs

--IANS kh/qma