Wout van Aert falls first, but keeps the yellow jersey – and yet his team Jumbo-Visma is the big loser on the fifth stage of the tour. The professional cyclists fight their way over the cobblestones, which causes many cyclists to fall. A German surprise is therefore also missing.
Tadej Pogacar raced across the dusty cobblestones of northern France with playful ease, while his chief challenger Primoz Roglic endured a nightmare in the chaos. The fifth stage of the Tour de France to the notorious forest of Arenberg caused the expected falls of the favorites. While defending champion Pogacar shone in defeating the escapee Simon Clarke, Roglic, last year’s second Jonas Vingegaard and Alexander Wlassow lost a lot of time.
“In winter I didn’t have a team, so I wanted to make the best of this season. My team boss came to me in the morning and told me to go to the group today. So I thought maybe today is my day. I can’t believe it worked. I had horrible cramps,” Clarke said. The 36-year-old also gave the Israel-Premier Tech team the long-awaited first stage win. Second in the sprint of a breakaway group was Taco van der Hoorn from the Netherlands ahead of Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen.
However, German hopes of a major coup by John Degenkolb or Nils Politt were not fulfilled. Instead, Max Walscheid shines despite a spectacular rollover in the initial phase in 12th place and Max Schachmann in 13th place. “It was extremely fast even through the neutral phase, extremely hectic, numerous falls. It was extremely fast towards the first paves, it didn’t happen at all more slowly. It was an elimination run backwards,” said Schachmann.
Belgian Wout van Aert, who fell early on, saved the yellow jersey with a brilliant comeback and ensured damage limitation for the Jumbo team on a pitch-black day. USA’s Neilson Powless is 13 seconds back in second, Boasson Hagen is third with a second more. Pogacar is now fourth, 19 seconds behind van Aert. Vingegaard is seventh, 40 seconds back and should now captain Team Jumbo-Visma as Roglic lost over two minutes.
Roglic and Vingegaard had already been set back by defects when Pogacar attacked in the fourth last cobblestone sector and also distanced Vlasow, captain of the German team Bora-hansgrohe. With the classics specialist Jasper Stuyven, Pogacar chased a five-man lead group and even drove in the virtual yellow jersey for a short time. In the final, however, the dominator also seemed to run out of strength and concentrated on gaining time on his ranking competitors.
Vingegaard and Vlasov lost just 13 seconds to Pogacar in the first big chasing group. The duo owed that largely to the work of van Aert, who risked his yellow jersey to help out Vingegaard. Roglic, who also fell, had helpers at his side, but only reached the finish line 2:08 minutes after Pogacar.
Eleven cobblestone sectors with a total length of 19.4 kilometers had to be mastered. Compared to the stage won by Degenkolb in 2018 over the pavés of northern France, the organizers chose longer sectors this year to make the race more difficult.
The teams adjusted the setup of the bikes according to the challenges of the day. That’s how Wlassow rode the bike that the team also uses in the spring classic Paris-Roubaix. A suspension is installed on the handlebars, which can be switched on and off. In addition, 32 millimeter wide tires without inner tubes were mounted, on normal stages a maximum of 28 millimeters are ridden. A thicker chainring should ensure that the chain does not fall off.
Right from the start, the field drove with a lot of pressure on the pedals. In the first hour of racing alone, the average was 51 km/h. The nervousness was great, even van Aert was careless. After colliding with teammate Steven Kruiswijk, the Belgian crashed about 95 kilometers from the finish. On the hunt back into the field, he also collided slightly with a team vehicle.
The incidents seemed to have left their mark, as van Aert was unusually far behind on the cobblestone passages. Things didn’t go particularly well for the Jumbo-Visma team. About 35 kilometers before the finish, last year’s second Vingegaard had a defect and had to wait a long time for a suitable spare wheel. Van Aert dropped back to help the Dane. Shortly thereafter, Roglic also fell behind. Within a few kilometers, Jumbo-Visma may have lost the tour on the fifth section.
