2018 Tour de France Stage 5 Results & Recap
Stage 5 of the 2018 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Sagan takes second victory
By Clara Beard
Peter Sagan outsprinted Sonny Colbrelli in a two up drag race to win stage 5 of the Tour de France, his second victory of the race. Colbrelli was pressuring the world champion for the win, but ran out of gas a few metres from the line. \nPhilippe Gilbert (Quick-Step Floors), who wound up his sprint early, held on for third place.
“I’ve been a bit lucky today because Sonny Colbrelli was close again,” Sagan said after the stage. “I actually spoke with him during the stage and I told him to not surprise me. He asked me to let him win just one stage and I replied that I wouldn’t do that but if he keeps trying, he’ll become a Tour de France stage winner as well one day. My team did a good job pulling the bunch and positioning me well with 2km to go after Team Sky rode at the front. I expected some attacks and it happened with Philippe Gilbert. We caught him and it forced Greg Van Avermaet to go too early. In fact, he pulled a good sprint for me. I have to say a big thanks to Greg too. It was a very nice stage, technical, up and down, left and right. I enjoyed it.”\nGreg Van Avermaet (BMC) retains his yellow jersey by two seconds ahead of teammate, Tejay Van Garderen (BMC Racing Team). Gilbert moved up one place to third overall, bumping Geraint Thomas (SKY) to fourth.
“I think I made some mistakes,” Van Avermaet said after the stage. “I reacted to Phil [Gilbert] because he was on the mix of the GC and, when I chased him, he stopped his effort. It was hard for me, I missed those 250 meters full gas and I would have needed them for the finale. I thought the final turn was at 250m from the finish line, and it actually it was 360m. Those mistakes happen. In the end, it would have been difficult to beat Peter even if I had got that figure right. But this was a super nice stage, a super hard one on very small roads. There weren’t big crashes. A long stage with wide roads is less tiring. On this kind of course, the fatigue gets into the riders gradually and that makes the race safer. This week we have several nice stages for Classics’ riders. There’s another nice one coming up in Roubaix on Sunday. Quick-Step Floors is a very big threat for tomorrow. My favourite is Julian Alaphilippe. He might as well take the yellow jersey from me.”
171 riders took the start in Lorient for the first real road race test of the tour. A 7-man breakaway escaped at five kilometres: 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). They were allowed a maximum of 4’25” by the BMC-led peloton.
Chavanel attacked at the bottom of the first categorised climb, the côte de Kaliforn (km 106) and stayed away until Skujins, Calmejane and Edet caught back up about 40 kilometres later. Chavanel later lost contact on the côte de Ménez Quélerc’h, then Edet cracked on Locronan. Skujins came over the line to take the polka dot jersey.
“It feels great to be the first Latvian to wear a distinctive jersey at the Tour de France, but it had to happen sooner or later, right? Skujins said. “If not me, someone else would have done it. It was definitely not the goal at the start of this Tour. We came here for looking after Bauke [Mollema] on GC and sprint with John [Degenkolb]. Today I was mostly out there trying to go for the stage win and I end up with the polka dot jersey. Obviously, it’s not a bad way to start. Sylvain Chavanel going solo ended the chances of the breakaway making it to the finish, and thus I decided to take advantage of my position to fight for the leadership of the Mountains classification. When Chavanel attacked, Calmejane just sat on. I got frustrated after dragging him for free during 30 kilometers, and that’s why I attacked to catch Chavanel. And he still said he wouldn’t ride, because I looked too fresh and too strong. That seemed inappropriate to me.”
The breakaway was contained right before the time bonus sprint. Rein Taaramäe (Direct Energie) countered, but it was short lived as Sky picked up the pace into the final uphill rise.
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