Tour de France Stage 5: Clarke Steals Present Whereas Roglic, Jimbo Endure

Israel Cycling’s Simon Clarke snatched victory on the prestigious fifth stage of the Tour de France across the cobblestones of the Roubaix region (a/k/a Department du Nord) with a bike throw that vanquished Taco van der Hoorn from a sprint win out of the day’s five-rider breakaway. And you could look at the standings and surmise that the stage was uneventful, but you would be dead wrong.

Photo by JASPER JACOBS/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images

Wout Van Aert saved both his maillot jaune and his team’s overall hopes with a selfless rescue of Jumbo-Visma teammate Jonas Vingegaard, who suffered a mechanical between cobblestone secteurs and was left behind riding an extra-large teammate’s bike. Eventually he secured a replacement, but by that time the peloton — still minutes behind the break— had split in two, and the Dane’s hopes were at risk. Van Aert, up front protecting Primoz Roglic, eventually came back to help save time for Vingegaard, along with Trish Benoot and others.
Then disaster struck again (a third blow as Van Aert crashed early in the stage) as Roglic went down after another rider dislodged a hay bale on a roundabout. By the time Roglic got going, he had lost both the peloton and the group of his chasing teammates.

Tadej Pogacar— who else? — seemed likely to profit enormously, riding comfortably across the cobbles and even following a powerful attack by Trek’s Jasper Stuyven in search of the stage win. The two got within 30 seconds of the lead group and consistently held a minute over the Vingegaard chase as well as two minutes over Roglic.

Photo by Alex Broadway/Getty Images

By the finish, the stage had gotten away and only tue Roglic gap held. Thanks to Van Aert as well as Ineos’ Tom Pidcock, his cyclocross rival, they had closed the final gap to under 20 seconds behind Pogacar.

And in the process, Jimbo snatched back Van Aert’s yellow jersey from the hungry grip of EF Education’s Neilson Powless, who was bidding to become the first American in years to don the Tour leader’s kit, desperately attacking the front group from 700 meters out in a bid for the stage and bonus seconds that would have put him in yellow — an historic first for the emerging star and the first rider of Native American descent at the Tour. But it was not to be as the fourth rider in the leading quartet (having lost EF’s Magnus Cort earlier), Edvald Boasson Hagen, caught Powless and denied him his glory.

[more words and details once I’m off the plane!{

Lille Métropole – Arenberg Porte de Hainau 157 km

Here we go, the much anticipated cobble stage. Very long distance on cobbles but the sectors aren’t of the worst quality. This will be a very tense and possibly decisive day.

Expected finish: 17:20 – 17:40 CEST

Cuddles the of the Day : Mathieu van der Poel

Cn’t let Wout trump him, can he?

Official site , Startlist