Tour de France 2019 result: Peter Sagan clinches stage five victory in Colmar
Relive all the action from a tricky day through the Vosges
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Your support makes all the difference.Slovakian Peter Sagan won the fifth stage of the Tour de France, a 175.5-km bumpy ride from St Die des Vosges on Wednesday.
The three-time world champion beat Belgian Wout van Aert and Italian Matteo Trentin in a sprint finish. France’s Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The overall contenders had a quiet day in the peloton ahead of Thursday’s sixth stage, a 160.5-km ride from Mulhouse ending at the top of La Planche des Belles Filles.
Click on stage 5 to refresh the live tracker
Race preview
Christian Prudhomme, the race director, didn’t say it overtly, but when his team designed this particular Tour de France route, they did so with a goal in mind to disrupt Team Sky’s smothering rhythm. Sky had spent the last decade sitting on the front of the peloton in formation eating up the road kilometre by kilometre, day by day, carrying their strongest rider to the podium in Paris on a gilded yellow cushion, and their methodical approach garnered few fans in cycling’s heartlands.
One French journalist speaking to The Independent last summer compared them to Real Madrid winning the Champions League three years in a row. “They have the best players, the best riders… I’m bored,” he said. In L’Equipe Sky were described as “the snake with two heads”, referring to the dominance of Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome. Race organisers ASO came under pressure to take away Sky’s certainty and make the race more unpredictable.
“Our desire is not to make things harder but more varied,” Prudhomme said at the 2019 Tour’s unveiling. “There will be less hors catégorie cols [the most severe climbs] than in previous years but there will be more second category climbs. There will be more medium mountains, where the race is harder to control, and we take full responsibility for that decision.”
In theory it makes sense, and if ever there was a stage to test that new ethos it is stage five from Saint-die-des-Vosges to Colmar: 175.5km of rolling hills featuring four tough categorised climbs, two of which stand back-to-back in the final 40km. It is a day that the general classification players like Team Ineos (now re-badged from Sky) hope is uneventful, but which could easily slip out of their grasp and into the lap of the gods.
The flat-ish start invites a breakaway and there is likely to be an almighty scrap for the chance to be among the chosen escapees. The peloton could take it easy and let them go, although there are plenty of puncheurs who can profit on a technical finish like this one, which rushes up and down two climbs on route to the finish at Colmar, and who might be unwilling to simply hand over the stage to the breakers.
The pure sprinters like stage-four winner Elia Viviani are likely to find this one too hard going, which means if Peter Sagan is still in contention near the final summit he will be a huge favourite to win the stage as the fastest man left. But he will likely falter somewhere along the way when the road tilts up; the winner will need a climbing engine combined with skilful descending abilities and a long kick to the finish.
The man in polka dots, Tim Wellens, has said he is targeting a win here while one-day specialists like Greg van Avermaet and the man in yellow, Julian Alaphilippe, are the type of riders who could triumph. Alaphilippe’s priority will be to retain the yellow jersey, but don’t rule out another stunning solo burst that earned him an impressive victory on stage three.
Yet if the breakaway is a few minutes clear coming into the final two climbs, while the peloton begins shedding stragglers, they may stay clear from the reduced bunch and the winner will come from the break. Getting in there in the first place will be half the challenge.
Five contenders
Julian Alaphilippe – He is the No1 road racer in the world for a reason, and could repeat his display on stage three. ****
Greg van Avermaet – The Olympic champion is targeting stage wins and this route suits his punchy style. ***
Thomas de Gendt – A connoisseur of the breakaway who could profit if the break stays away. **
Tim Wellens – The man wearing the polka dots will be keen to get to the front of the race and add to his King of the Mountains points haul. **
Peter Sagan – If the pace is a little slow and he copes with the climbs, Sagan has the speed to win a reduced bunch sprint. *
80km to go: The breakaway riders are around two and a half minutes clear of the peloton right now as the first category two climb of the day. A reminder of the four attackers: Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal), Mads Schmidt Wurtz (Katusha Alpecin), Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo) and Simon Clarke (EF Education-First).
A reminder of the standings in each of the four classifications coming into today's stage 5:
The breakaway of Clarke, Skujins, Wellens and Wurtz Schmidt are working well together up the 6km Cote-du-Haut-Koenigsbourg and the castle at its summit as they try to protect their lead which is still more than two minutes.
One of the breakawayers, Toms Skujins, was very interesting when we talked to him about what it's like to ride in the Tour de France. Here's what he, Mark Cavendish, Geraint Thomas and a host of other riders had to say about the bare realities of the Tour:
65km to go: The breakaway crests the summit and begins rushing down the otherside, but their lead has fallen to only 1min 40sec. This is still just about anyone's race for the taking other than the pure sprinters, who are likely to find the final 40km or so tough going.
Tim Wellens was again the first to the summit and collected the maximum King of the Mountains points, which is five on a category two climb. It will be interesting to see at what point during the Tour Julian Alaphilippe decides to try and wrestle the polka dot jersey away from Wellens, but wearing yellow is preventing him from sneaking off on stages like this one.
50km to go: We are reaching the business end of this stage five. There are two tough climbs back to back in the final 40km with a steep a technical descent leading into the flat finish at Colmar. The breakaway's lead is now timed at 1min 52sec, which doesn't feel nearly enough given what's ahead.
Ireland's Dan Martin has suffered a puncture and he's now trailing the main pack by about 1km.
40km to go: Halfway up this penultimate climb, the peloton has split. A handful of sprinters as well as riders like Simon Yates and Thomas de Gendt have fallen away, while the rest continue to pursue the four breakaway riders. Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal), Mads Wurtz Schmidt (Katusha Alpecin), Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo) and Simon Clarke (EF Education-First) remain 1min 30sec clear of the chasers – this stage is wide open for anyone to win.
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