Mark Cavendish suffered a nasty bump on the head as he became caught up in a serious crash in stage four on Wednesday, and it may have seemed as though he was still feeling the effects as the stage five run into Saint Quentin was played out in almost exactly the same way.
If that got the Team Sky sprinter looking for a wee lie down then so will the sight of Andre Greipel beating him to the line once again.
The German won his second consecutive stage yesterday, thwarting Cavendish's hopes of a clinching 22nd stage win. The Lotto-Belisol rider produced another textbook ride to pip Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) and Juan Jose Haedo (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank) on a fast finish into Saint Quentin on stage five.
Cavendish took fourth place with the small consolation that, with points classification leader Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) held up in yet another a crash – occurring around 3km from the line just like in stage four – he closed a few crucial points on the green jersey holder.
A four-man breakaway comprising Jan Ghyselinck (Cofidis), Pablo Urtasun (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun) and Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ-BigMat) – which had led from the first kilometre of the race – came within almost 100m of succeeding before being swept up within touching distance of the line.
After Wednesday's disastrous run into Rouen, Sky made the decision not to leave Cavendish to fend for himself, sending an eight-strong train to the front of the peloton for the first time this year. The move had the bonus of keeping their general classification contender Bradley Wiggins safe from danger.
It was a precarious waiting game on the long straight approach into Saint Quentin as Sky, BMC, Katusha and Lampre jostled for position. A nervous peloton inevitably crashed, with Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) hitting the deck, taking Sagan with him. With four crashes in the last six days, Farrar is rivalling team-mate Robbie Hunter for war wounds.
"It was a crazy day," said Greipel. "I was behind the crash with 3km to go. Greg Henderson brought me back. It was a hard sprint. I think it was the hardest sprint I have done."
Earlier, Cavendish led the bunch in the intermediate sprint following a perfect lead out from Sky team-mate Edvald Boasson Hagen. Goss was in sixth, with Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) seventh and Sagan eighth.
Sprinter Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) joined the Tour's growing list of casualties, forced to abandon yesterday after 40km citing gastro-intestinal problems and an injured knee.
Yesterday's result means the general classification standings remain unchanged with Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Nissan-Trek) still in yellow and Wiggins second overall, still 10 seconds clear of defending Tour de France champion Cadel Evans (BMC).
Despite being waylaid by the crash, Sagan retains the green jersey, while Michael Morkov, of Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank – with no classified climbs in yesterday's stage –remains in the polka-dot jersey. Today's 207.5km stage from Epernay to Metz is the last one for the sprinters until next Saturday.
Today could also mark Cancellara's penultimate day in the maillot jaune. After a week on the relative flat of Belgium and northern France, tomorrow the Tour heads into the first of the medium mountain stages, finishing in La Planche des Belles Filles.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article