2026 Tour de France Stage 5 Results & Recap
Stage 5 of the 2026 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
The first bunch sprint of every Tour de France tends to feature a good degree of mayhem and this one fitted the pattern. A crash towards the middle of the bunch 4km from home left sprinters without lead-out men and delayed GC hopefuls, notably race leader Torstein Træen (UXM), Paul Seixas (DCT) and Jonas Vingegaard (TVL).
While they chased after the back-end of the peloton, up at the front XDS Astana came into the final straight on the front and with numbers. Max Kanter (XAT), who'd already beaten his rivals at the intermediate sprint less than an hour before, had two teammates leading him out. But he also had Olav Kooij (DCT) on his wheel.
Just as Kanter prepared to accelerate, Kooij got the jump on him. The Dutchman opened a gap and kept increasing it as he bulleted along the right-hand barrier, crossing the like three bike lengths clear of Kanter, with Tim Merlier (SOQ) third, Huub Artz (LOI) fourth and Jasper Philipsen (APT), the winner here two years ago, fifth.
Further back, Seixas managed to regain the bunch before it crossed the line, while Vingegaard and Træen just managed to catch on the very tail-end of it and, therefore, prevent any time loss.
There was no doubt about the most combative rider of the day. Baptiste Veistroffer (LOI) attacked so quickly he almost took race director Christian Prudhomme's start flag with him. The Frenchman had said before the start that he would attack and wasn't at all perturbed by spending the stage out on his own.
He pushed his lead out to close to four minutes and was finally reeled in 15km from Pau. Yet, this is unlikely to be the last time we'll see "The Wild Boar of Fouesnant" roaming free in this race. Like Kooij, he's determined to take a stage win on his Tour debut and will surely set his sights on the two flat stages that follow tomorrow's big day in the Pyrenees.
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