British sprinter Mark Cavendish finally hit form to win the fifth stage of the Tour de France in a sprint finish on Wednesday and Australian veteran Simon Gerrans kept the yellow jersey.
Cavendish made a poor start to the Tour but this 24th career Tour stage win will boost his confidence and launch his bid to win the sprinters’ green jersey.
“I’m super happy,” Cavendish said. “Now the pressure’s off and hopefully it has started the ball rolling.”
With a few hundred metres to go, Cavendish sat on his teammate Gert Steegmans’ wheel and got into a perfect position to attack and held off a challenge from Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen. Peter Sagan, who leads the green jersey contest, finished in third place. But Cavendish pulled back to within 35 points in second place overall.
“I’m motivated, I’ve got good form and a great team around me,” Cavendish said, praising Steegmans. “He did a great job.”
The 84-year-old Andre Darrigade, who won 22 Tour stages as a sprinter, warmly greeted Cavendish after his win.
Cavendish needs one more stage win to tie Andre Leducq for third on the Tour’s all-time list of stage winners, and he could do that on Thursday as stage six again favours sprinters.
If he does that, he could eye Bernard Hinault’s 28 wins, the second-highest total after Eddie Merckx’s imperious record of 34.
While Cavendish was raising his arms in triumph, behind him there was more chaos as about a dozen riders hit the tarmac in a crash. It was unclear who caused it.
The 228.5-kilometre route featured some small climbs but was otherwise flat, starting out from the tourist beach resort of Cagnes-sur-Mer and finishing in the southern sea port of Marseille.
It was a quiet afternoon with the pack rolling along at a slow pace until a crash toward the end brought down 15-20 riders.
rider omitted for ‘being slow’
“Crying on the inside,” American rider Ted King fought back tears on Wednesday as the Tour de France peloton rode away without him, because he was too injured to complete the previous stage in regulation time.
Some other riders felt race regulators were over-zealous in excluding the Cannondale rider for being a fraction too slow in the team time trial.
“Rules are rules but it is a little bit tough, isn’t it?” said Richie Porte of Team Sky. “It does seem rough.”
“I’m shredded,” said King. To compound his misery, the exclusion came as his parents were arriving in France to cheer him at what had been his first Tour.
Cannondale said King missed the cut by just 7 seconds. Tuesday’s team race against the clock, won by the Orica GreenEdge team, was the fastest in Tour history, which made it harder for King to keep up. Cannondale said its managers appealed without success to the race jury.