Stage 5 of the 2018 Tour de France looked somewhat like an Ardennes classic, and as Peter Sagan grows into the prototypical classics rider, he took the win on the 10% climb into the finish.
The morning opened with news that several riders, including Sunweb’s Michael Matthews, had abandoned the race either due to sickness or injuries sustained in yesterday’s big crash at the 5km mark.
After three mass-start stages with only one Cat 4 climb, today’s stage included 5 categorized climbs: Côte de Kaliforn at km 106 (Cat 4), Côte de Trimen at km 113 (Cat. 4), cat. 4 – km 140.5: Côte de la Roche du Feu at km 140.5 (Cat. 3), Côte de Ménez-Quélerc’h at km 159.5 (Cat. 3) and Côte de la Montagne de Locronan at km 181 (Cat. 3).
There were a couple of early attacks in the stage, but the break that stuck was Elie Gesbert (Fortuneo-Samsic), Julien Vermote (Dimension Data), Jasper De Buyst (Lotto-Soudal), Lilian Calmejane and Sylvain Chavanel (Direct Energie), Tom Skujins (Trek-Segafredo) and Nicolas Edet (Cofidis), who quickly opened a lead of 2 minutes 15km of racing.
Sylvain Chavenel was the man to watch in the break, as he was just 1’48” off of the overall race lead. The peloton was trying to hold the break tight, keeping the gap to just under 4 minutes after 75km of racing, but at the first sprint point, Chavenel took the sprint and then attacked at the Côte de Kaliforn to go solo.
With 72km to go, Chavenel had managed to open up a 40 second gap over the break while still holding the peloton 3 minutes back, but he soon got caught by Skujins, Edet and Calmejane on the Côte de la Roche du Feu. The quarter manage to hold a lead of 2’30” over the bunch for a time, but Chavanel runs out of gas at Chateulin.
With 40km to go, the lead was down to Calmejane, Skujins and Edet with less than a 2 minute gap over the peloton. It’s unlikely to happen, but if Calmejane was able to hold that gap, he’d ride into yellow today. Peter Sagan’s BORA-hansgrohe teammates were at the front of the peloton keeping the pace on.
With 25km to go, the gap was hovering between 45 seconds and a minute, but they were altogether before the final intermediate sprint point.
Rein Taaramae made a brave attack with 10km to go. No chance for yellow for him, but it’s certain the Direct Energie is enjoying the television exposure.
Team Sky went on the chase and caught Taaramae with 5.5km remaining.
Sky, BORA, Quick-Step and BMC were all pushing the pace in the last kilometers, looking to make an impact for their GC contenders.
One last little roundabout and the peloton was in the closing kilometer Micheal Kwiatkowski was leading for Team Sky, but he wasn’t the only one. With a 10% grade in the final meters, it could go any way.
With 200m to go, however, it was Peter Sagan who had fuel left in the tank. coming by race leader Greg Van Avermaet and Sonny Cobrelli for his second stage win in the 2018 Tour.
2018 Tour de France Stage 5 Brief Results:
- Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe) at 4:48:06
- Sonny Cobrelli (Bahrain-Merida)
- Phillipe Gilbert (Quick Step)
- Alejandro Valverde (Movistar)
- Julian Allaphillipe (Quick Step)
General Classification After Stage 5:
- Greg Van Avermaet (BEL) BMC Racing Team 18:22:00
- Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team at 2″
- Philippe Gilbert (BEL) Quick-Step Floors at 3″
- Geraint Thomas (GBR) Team Sky at 5″
- Julian Alaphilippe (FRA) Quick-Step Floors at 6″
- Bob Jungels (LUX) Quick-Step Floors at 9″
- Tom Dumoulin (NED) Team Sunweb at 13″
- Søren Kragh Andersen (DEN) Team Sunweb at 13″
- Rigoberto Urán (COL) Team EF Education First – Drapac p/b Cannondale at 37″
- Rafal Majka (POL) BORA-hansgrohe at 52″
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