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2009 Tour de France – Stage 5 Results

July 8th, 2009 by Al Fresco 3,760 views No Comment

thomas-voeckler

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After a long breakaway with 5 others, Thomas Voeckler of the Bbox Bouyges Telecom went solo with about 10 km to go to take his first stage win at the Tour de France. He rode out front with Anthony Geslin (FdJ), Marcin Sapa (Lampre), Albert Timmer (Skil Shimano), Mikhail Ignatiev (Katusha) and Yauheni Hutarovich (FdJ) for much of the race before taking the win.

The race leaders were all together, so there should be no big changes in the General Classification. Fabian Cancellara gets the yellow jersey for one more day, knowing that Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador and the rest of Astana is breating down his neck.

Today’s fifth stage of the 96th Tour de France was a 196.5-kilometer race from Le Cap d’Agde to Perpignan. This is a moderately flat part of Southern France and the course ran along the Mediterranean Coast. The route did make a mid-stage detour into the hilly terrain of the Couriers region, taking on two Cat 4 climbs before it plunged back to the coast to give the sprinters another opportunity to shine.

As expected, Dutch cyclist Piet Rooijakkers did not start today after falling in Tuesday’s team time trial. He underwent seven hours of surgery to repair a broken forearm.

Some were pegging Thor Hushovd (Cervelo) to go for the win today, having lived in the finishing town of Perpignan for a number of years. Of course, someone from the Astana team, be that Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador or Levi Leipheimer could be looking to take the yellow jersey away from Saxo Bank’s Fabian Cancellara.

Soon after the start, there were two breakaway groups. The first consisted of Anthony Geslin (FdJ), Thomas Voeckler (BBox) and Marcin Sapa (Lampre). Those three were being chased by Albert Timmer (Skil Shimano), Mikhail Ignatiev (Katusha) and Yauheni Hutarovich (FdJ) who in turn led the peloton. The two groups joined forces by the 34km mark and had an advantage of 5′30″ over the gruppo.

By the 46km mark, the gap was 8′10″, though that about as far as the peloton would let them go. By km  84, the gap would come down to a more comfortable (for the presumptive leaders)  3′30″. Columbia, Garmin and Astana are all putting riders at the front of the peloton.

The wind was blowing at nearly 40 km/h and was definitely a factor throughout the day.

As the leaders make their way over the Col de Feuilla, the top climber’s points go to Geslin, with Ignatiev taking second and Voeckler third. The riders enjoyed a little downhill run before taking on the day’s second rated climb, the 219m Cote de Treilles.

Robert Gesink (Rabobank) had a crash on the descent, and while he was up and moving, things did not look great for him. He went to the team car to be examined and two of his teammates held back to pull him back to the peloton if necessary. By the way, the 2nd set out mountain points went to Geslin, Timmer and Voeckler, in that order.

Meanwhile, up at the front of the peloton, Fabian Cancellara and the Saxo Bank team were driving the pace. It seemed that they wanted to avoid the split peloton problem that plagued Monday’s race, or possibly seemed that they wanted to play that game themselves, knowing that a turn into the strong coastal winds was coming.

With 60 km remaining, the lead was down to 2 minutes, while the hurting Robert Gesink and his two teammates were hanging more than a minute off the back.

A group composed of Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador, Andreas Kloden,  Levi Leipheimer, Haimar Zubeldia, Bradley Wiggins and Carlos Sastre was driving the chase and the gap to the fugitives begins to quickly erode. This chase group has managed to pull 1′30″ ahead of the second peloton as well.

At the third intermediate sprint, it was Sapa, Voeckler and Ignatiev in that order. With about 35 km to go, they still had 53 seconds over the peloton. There was a group of about 30 riders that dropped about a minute off the back of the peloton. Gesink managed to make it into that group after making a furious chase.

With about 30 km remaining, Astana, Columbia and Liquigas were driving the pace for the chase.

With less than 10 km to go, the escapees still were out front by nearly a minute, but they were starting to crack a little bit. Marcin Sapa & Anthony Geslin couldn’t keep up the pace and dropped into no man’s land.

Voeckler decided he wanted to win today and went solo at about the 5km mark. He left Hutarovich, Timmer and Ignatiev behind. At this point, it was all over for the sprinters and Voeckler looked to be well in control of his fate.

Results:

Pos

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