Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) raced with playful ease over the dusty cobblestones of northern France at the Tour de France, while his chief challenger Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) experienced a nightmare in the chaos.
Breakaway rider Clarke wins stage 5 of the Tour de France
The fifth stage of the Tour de France to the infamous Forest of Arenberg produced the expected crashes among the favourites. While defending champion Pogacar was able to hold on to the victory of breakaway rider Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech), Roglic, last year's runner-up Jonas Vingegaard and Aleksandr Vlasov lost a lot of time.
"I didn't have a team in the winter, so I wanted to make the most of this season. My team boss came to me in the morning and told me to join the group today. So I thought, maybe today is my day. I can't believe it worked out. I had terrible cramps," said Clarke. The 36-year-old also gave Team Israel-Premier Tech the first Tour stage win they had been longing for. Second in the sprint of a breakaway group was the Dutchman Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) ahead of the Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen (TotalEnergies).
Pogacar outpaces the competition - van Aert keeps yellow
In the overall standings, Belgian Wout van Aert successfully defended his yellow jersey once again. The US-American Neilson Powless (EF Education EasyPost) is 13 seconds back in second, Boasson Hagen is third with one second more on his account. Pogacar is now fourth, 19 seconds behind van Aert. Vingegaard is seventh, 40 seconds behind and is now likely to be the captain of the Jumbo-Visma team, as Roglic lost over two minutes.
Roglic and Vingegaard had already been thrown back by defects when Pogacar attacked in the fourth last cobblestone sector and also distanced Vlasov, captain of the German team Bora-hansgrohe. With the classics specialist Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo), Pogacar chased down a five-man lead group and even rode in the virtual yellow jersey for a short time. In the finale, however, even the dominator seemed to run out of steam and concentrated on gaining time on his classement rivals.
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Vingegaard and Vlasov lost only 13 seconds to Pogacar in the first large chasing group. The duo owed this mainly to the work of van Aert, who risked his yellow jersey to help Vingegaard. Roglic also had helpers at his side, but only reached the finish 2:08 minutes after Pogacar.
Great nervousness in the peloton
Eleven cobblestone sectors with a total length of 19.4 kilometres had to be tackled. Compared to the stage won by Degenkolb in 2018 over the pavés of northern France, the organisers chose longer sectors this year to make the race more difficult.
The teams adapted the set-up of the bikes to the challenges of the day. Vlasov, for example, rode the bike that the team also uses in the Paris-Roubaix spring classic. The handlebars are fitted with suspension that can be switched on and off. In addition, 32 millimetre wide tyres without inner tubes were fitted, whereas a maximum of 28 millimetres is used on normal stages. A thicker chainring should ensure that the chain does not fall off.
Van Aert crashes
The field rode with a lot of pressure on the pedals right from the start. In the first hour of the race alone, the average speed was 51 km/h. There was a lot of nervousness, even van Aert had a moment of carelessness. After a collision with team-mate Steven Kruiswijk, the Belgian crashed around 95 kilometres before the finish. On the chase back to the peloton, he also collided slightly with a team car.
The incidents seemed to have left their mark, as van Aert was unusually far behind on the cobbled sections. Things did not go particularly well for the Jumbo-Visma team. Around 35 kilometres before the finish, last year's runner-up Vingegaard had a defect and had to wait a long time for a suitable spare wheel. Van Aert dropped back to help the Dane. Shortly afterwards, Roglic also dropped back. Within a few kilometres, Jumbo-Visma may have already lost the Tour on the fifth stage.
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