Tour de France stage five – live!

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Delicious
• Digg

Thor Hushovd, Geraint Thomas and former leader Sylvain Chavanel on stage five – not exactly up hill and down dale. Photograph: Bas Czerwinski/AP

3.32pm: More turretted picture postcard castles and snaking rivers, and more effort from HTC on the front of the peloton. 37km to go and just 1min 44sec seperating hunted from hunters. It’s clear now – well, it’s been clear more or less from the start – that the race isn’t going to be won or lost today. But these are the stages that sap the strength from the legs ahead of the mountains. It all plays a part in the bigger picture.

3.25pm: There’s 45km left now – if the riders were travelling that route from Sunderland to Sheffield, they’d be somewhere around Wakefield. And on the M1.

3.20pm: It’s certainly been an aesthetically-pleasant stage, full of tumbling forests, rolling wheatfields and farming machinery that may or may not have moved in the past 50 years. Provins, which was around the midway point, is a Unesco world heritage site. The gap is down below two minutes now.

3.15pm: A couple of emails:

“Cav is a typical sprinter – when he wins, he is lauded and revels in the flashing of cameras and adulation of fans and media, forgiven his obnoxiousness,” writes Gary Naylor. “But second is nowhere in a sprint and Cav is currently no more than a bit of a prat. All could change soon as form is a fickle mistress, but Cav, a man with few friends in the peloton, will need to start winning soon.”

“Given that Hushovd is going to win Green,” writes P Atkinson, “and for the Yellow its not a question of whether Albert win win but whether any of his rivals will manage to take any time off him on any stage this year (they won’t), its a shame that the much maligned polka dot jersey seems incapable of generating interest anymore – does anyone even want to win it?”

“I think you may have underplayed the significance of Cav’s no-show in the sprints this year,” writes Duncan Watkins. “His whole team have been talking about the goal for Le Tour is to get Cav in Green. If that fails then that’s more significant than just Cavendish, it’s the end of HTC/Columbia’s whole Tour plans. Cue Team Sky feeling smug by not setting any ‘concrete’ goals…”

3.13pm: We’ve just had one of those lovely shots – from behind the pack looks like it’s barely moving, seemingly trundling at Ashdown-to-the-shops speed. Then they sweep round a corner and we get a side-on view of the incredible pace these guys travel at. Marvellous.

3.10pm: The HTC riders at the front of the peloton have been joined by a member of Lampre, Petacchi’s team. This, and I was only very dimly aware of it before it was just explained to me, is because its good form – gentlemanly if you like – for the teams who want their sprinter over the line first to do the bulk of the work when dragging in a breakaway. The Politics of the Peloton – it can take some learning.

3.05pm: Why I love Le Tour, part trois: the heartbreak. With just under 60km to go the gap is down to 2min 20sec and falling. It’s been a hard, hot, lonely day out front for Van de Walle and co, but they’re going to get no reward for it come the finish line.

3.02pm: “Afternoon John – so happy there’s a tour OBO/MBM, er KBK?” writes Luke Dealtry (Bringing up a good point – what is this? Pedal-by-pedal perhaps?). “Re the newly enigmatic Mark Cavendish, did he go too early yesterday or was he one man short on his train? I haven’t seen the footage but surely no Adam Hansen will take some practice to get used to.” That’s certainly the view of Cycling Weekly, while the TV boys have pointed to George Hincapie’s departure to BMC. As I said earlier, it just seemed he missed the gun and that Petacchi jumped him at the start of the sprint, though if that’s down to something deeper and more technical I’m not sure. His lead out looked perfect at the time …

2.58pm: The gap twix peloton and breakaway is down to three minutes now – they’re reeling them in with glacial certainty. While we’re in the calm before the storm, has anyone seen any fascinating features or links knocking about that there internet? I’ll kick things off with Saxo Bank rider Jens Voigt’s latest blog for bicycling.com.

2.50pm: Here’s Prince Albert of Monaco visiting the RadioShack team bus earlier today, courtesy of @johanbruyneel on Twitter. A very princely paunch, that. Speaking of Twitter, I joined yesterday and am vaguely attempting to set a most-followers-without-a-single-tweet world record. Join the ‘fun’ here.

2.44pm: “While there’s certainly an angle to say it’s not set the world alight yet, I think the Tour this year is nicely poised,” writes Guy Hornsby. “We’ve had a French maillot jaune, a time trial where no one’s taken a significant lead, a slippery and sprint stage with multiple crashes, and the loss of two top 10 GC riders (Frank Schleck and Christian Van de Velde) while the cobbles were an event in themselves. And now we’re in the break before the first set of mountains, and there’s no clear leader. Of course, Contador is the man to beat, but there are 4 or 5 riders that could challenge him overall, and there’s the great showing from Geraint Thomas so far and Cavendish’s enigmatic form that means there’s plenty to chew on. There’s something about the minutiae of the race that no other sport has, and it’s why July each year is one of my favourite sporting periods.” Agreed. Absolutely agreed.

2.40pm: Bert Grabsch, of Cavendish’s HTC-Columbia team, is doing some work at the head of the peloton. 77km to go and the gap is 3min 45sec.

2.37pm: If you haven’t explored it yet, our Tour de France interactive this year is ruddy marvellous (even we do say so ourselves). Tactics, team profiles, stage fly-throughs … it’s all there.

2.33pm: Why I love Le Tour, part deux: the Test match narrative. The glory of an event played out over successive days provides stories within the stories within the stories. The yellow jersey is obviously the key strand of the tale, but there’s so much else going on. Still not much drama today though, and who can blame them – it’s 35C over in Champagne country.

2.27pm: “How crucial do you think Frank Schleck’s crash will be?” ponders Graham Fulcher. “Will it actually mean that Andy races Contador and doesn’t spend his time turning round looking for big brother?” I can’t see it helping, and to beat Alberto Schleck Jr was always going to need all the help he could get. Though it might free his mind slightly, it weakening of the Saxo Bank team has got to be a more telling factor. This is only his third tour – time is on his side and you get the feeling that, when he does win the thing (which he surely will at some point), his older brother will be next to him on the Champs Elysees.

2.20pm: The gap between breakway and peloton is staying pretty constant at around the four-minute mark now. Those not fully versed in how the Tour works might be wondering how and why Van de Walle, Guiterrez and El Fares have been allowed to develop and maintain this lead. The key thing is that none of them are contenders for the overall title. As they don’t represent a threat to the big guns – your Armstrongs, Contadors and Schlecks – the peloton (or, more particularly, the teams of the big guns) are happy enough to let them take a punt on grabbing a stage victory. The likely story from this point on is still the gradual reining in of our plucky trio and a sprint finish in Montargis.

2.14pm: Why I love Le Tour, part une: The post-stage interviews. Take a look at Cadel Evans here. That gaunt, pale face. The thousand-yard stare in his eyes. The tremor in his voice. It’s a sport where the astonishing exertion is palpable in the competitors after the event. You get the sense of an almighty effort made. And you know at the back of their minds is the knowledge that they have to do it all over again tomorrow.

2.05pm: The riders are pretty much at the halfway stage as we pick up today and the story of the stage so far, other than Wiggins’ wobble, is of a plucky breakaway by a trio of riders. Just 6km into the stage Jurgen Van de Walle, José Guierrez and Julien El Fares escaped from the peloton and it’s been a decent effort – at one point the trio had a lead of nearly eight minutes over the chasing pack, though that’s down to less than four now.

1.55pm: One piece of news already today comes from the Team Sky camp, whose team leader Bradley Wiggins took a tumble in the neutralised zone (basically a few kilometres worth of warm up and the beginning of the stage to give the start town a decent view of the riders and provide a bit of a rolling start). Here’s the story:

Bradley Wiggins suffered a fall in the neutralised zone on the fifth stage of the Tour de France in Epernay today.

The Tour peloton meanders through a parade route out of the start town each day before racing begins. And deep in champagne country, Wiggins took a tumble 7km into the 187.5km stage to Montargis.

Team Sky said that Wiggins was in pain but fine to continue and their leader swiftly rejoined the peloton.

The 30-year-old Olympic track champion was among a large number of riders to fall on slippery roads during the Tour’s second road stage on Monday, suffering abrasions, but the pain of today’s tumble may be more embarrassment than anything else.

Preamble: Afternoon all and welcome to live coverage of stage five of this year’s Tour de France. It’s today’s stage takes in 187.5km (or 116.5 miles – roughly the distance from Sunderland to Sheffield), and it’s flatter than a three-day-old bottle of pop with the lid left off. That means a sprint finish (almost certainly) and a chance for Mark Cavendish to redeem himself following yesterday’s misfire.

Here’s Tim Lewis, our man in Reims, on Cav’s woes:

Both on and off the bike, Mark Cavendish had been quiet, unnervingly so, during the first week of the 2010 Tour de France. Either something was wrong or we should prepare ourselves for an explosion. On the evidence of today’s fourth stage from Cambrai to Reims, it may be the former.

Everything was set up perfectly for the 25-year-old sprinter to claim his first victory of the race but, when he needed to make the final push, his legs failed him. With 100 metres to the line, Alessandro Petacchi flashed past him and Cavendish dramatically sat up and stopped pedalling.

The Manxman was initially unavailable for comment after the race, but the sight of his helmet flying out of the middle doors of the HTC-Columbia team bus just after he entered gave some hint of the frustration he may be feeling. Later he said, “I’m disappointed about today. I felt really good during the stage. I feel sorry for my team-mates who rode unbelievably and I just didn’t finish it off at the end.”

It certainly seems to be a different Cavendish in France this year. The 2009 model was astonishing, cannonballing to the line on six stages, getting his tactics perfect, showing raw, animalistic speed and looking invulnerable whenever he hit the front with the line in sight. Compare that to yesterday when he seemed to miss Alessandro Petacchi’s break for the line, briefly pound the pedals in a belated attempt to reel the Italian in, then give it up as a bad job. The great sprinter Eric Zabel, Cavendish’s adviser on the HTC-Columbia team, reckoned: “The team did a perfect job. The only thing we missed today was Cav’s sprint legs from last year.”

If all seems a little OTT to show such concern just four stages in, it’s worth remembering that these sprint finishes, and the race for the green jersey, are Cavendish’s raison d’etre in Le Tour. He’s already 65 points behind Thor Hushovd in the sprint standings – surely too much to claw back. Still, he’ll be hurting today – maybe that’ll help him unleash the best when the peloton gets to Montargis.