Slovak prodigy wins again but time losses to overall threats the big story
Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) more than made up for missing out on the sprint yesterday, having been caught up in a crash, with a flat and fast sprint win on stage six of the Tour de France. The young Slovak took win number three of the race, and his first truly flat sprint, ahead of André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) and Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEdge), who were second and third.
But the sprint finish took a backseat to what was going on in the road behind, as a long list of men for the general classification frantically tried to close gaps created by a massive crash with 24km to go. The two primary favourites, Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) and Bradley Wiggins (Sky Procycling) were ahead of the carnage, but their predicted two-man battle for the final yellow jersey may have become an even bigger likelihood.
All hell broke loose just under the 25-kilometre banner, when a large high-speed crash scattered more than 35 riders all over the road and into both ditches. Many riders were simply able to get up, grab new wheels or bikes, and move on. But with the amount of chaos in the middle of the road, by the time anyone could remount and get around the mess, the front of the peloton was already long gone. Unhurt riders had to run into the neighboring wheat fields to find clean road.
Frank Schleck (Radioshack-Nissan) was one of the biggest names to lose time, as it took nearly three minutes before the Luxembourg rider eventually caught up with a chasing group that consolidated more than two minutes behind the main bunch, which was being driven by Orica-GreenEdge.
Despite their hard work, the chasing group of favourites could make no headway in the final 20 kilometres, and amongst the big names to lose 2’08” on the stage were Schleck, Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD), Pierre Rolland (Europcar), Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R-La Mondiale), and Janez Brajkovic (Astana).
Robert Gesink (Rabobank) came down in the crash and lost 3’30”, and Giro d’Italia winner Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp) saw his GC hopes in the Tour come to a halt, as the Canadian lost more than 13 minutes in what was a disaster for Rabobank and Garmin-Sharp. The American team had one immediate abandonment after the crash in Tom Danielson, and Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel-Euskadi) was also unable to continue.
Garmin-Sharp’s Dave Zabriskie set off first on the day’s main breakaway, and Davide Malacarne (Europcar), Romain Zingle (Cofidis), and Karsten Kroon (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank) joined him. Zabriskie was also the last man caught inside one kilometer to go.
“We tried pretty hard, tried to be smart about it. They [the peloton] didn’t give us too much leeway,” Zabriskie told reporters after the stage. “I was trying to get one last acceleration, tried to hold it to the end, and got caught with 1km to go.
“That’s the Tour,” Zabriskie concluded about the major crash. “Lot of crashes happen, it’s kind of a game of luck sometimes here. You hope everyone is okay, losing time is one thing, having your life is another thing.”
Sagan was relieved to have been able to bounce back from yesterday’s scoreless finale. “I’m very happy when I can win a stage like today. Yesterday I was unlucky with the crash but also content that nothing was broken and that I didn’t have any injuries,” he said. “I don’t want to be compared with other riders, I want to be Peter Sagan.”
Business as usual as the peloton traverses northern France
On the 207km run from Épernay to Metz, which has hosted more than 40 Tour de France stage finishes, both breakaway and main bunch carried on at a moderately quick pace. The peloton covered more than 42 kilometres in the first hour of racing – a quicker clip than the gradualness of the past two stages.
In perhaps a foreshadowing of the events to come, riders hit the pavement before the flag dropped, as Richie Porte (Sky Procycling) and Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Lotto-Belisol) came down in the neutral section, albeit with no consequences. After the leading quartet got away, another crash held up riders from Vacansoleil-DCM and Movistar, along with Greipel and Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R-La Mondiale). The winner of the past two stages was said to have suffered shoulder and hand injuries, and indeed the big German had torn his jersey significantly on the left shoulder.
With Radioshack-Nissan on the front yet again, Lotto-Belisol and Orica-GreenEdge were present as well. Zabriskie took the break out to a maximum of around six and a half minutes before the peloton began cutting into it. Gesink was paced back to the bunch by team-mate Luis Leon Sanchez after a double wheel change, and with 80km to race, the pace was obviously higher than it had been at similar points in recent days.
At the intermediate sprint point, Kroon made a move in the break to pick up the points and monetary bonus as Lampre-ISD and Argos-Shimano queued up behind. Vacansoleil-DCM led it out before Team Sky took over. Coming up to take maximum remaining points was Goss, as the Aussie kept himself in the thick of the green jersey race. Cavendish was just behind, followed by Sagan and Kris Boeckmans (Vacansoleil-DCM).
The high-speed crash marks all over the general classification
As the bunch reorganized, Jens Voigt (Radioshack-Nissan) began sending out the message at the front, and suddenly the gap to the escape began to tumble. With still 65km to go, it was under two minutes. On the Côte de Buxières, the only categorized climb of the day, Zabriskie grabbed the lone point available. Two minutes later with the peloton on the climb, Lotto-Belisol and Rabobank riders contacted, bringing everyone behind to a complete halt. Jelle Vanendert (Lotto-Belisol) was seen brushing himself off, and Bauke Mollema (Rabobank) had dismounted as well. The peloton was in several large pieces on the descent but was soon back together. With 45 kilometres to go, the gap to the leading quartet was a minute, and it hovered there for some time afterward.
News soon filtered through that the hard-luck Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) would not be contesting the sprint, and nor would Greipel, still shaken up from his earlier crash. With 30km remaining, Farrar was dropped out of the peloton and Oscar Freire (Katusha) soon followed, but the peloton soon came back to them when nearly three-quarters of it was affected by the mass crash with 24km to the finish.
Without really understanding what had happened, riders tumbled at a reported 70 kilometres per hour. Yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Nissan) barely escaped, but team-mate Schleck was not so lucky. Along with Mollema and Gesink, Steven Kruijswijk was caught up, worsening the disaster for Rabobank. Hesjedal was slow to get up, with his team-mate Johan Van Summeren even worse off.
Still with its job to do up front, Orica-GreenEdge kept on the gas in support of Goss. BMC Racing and Sky Procycling still had trains with Evans and Wiggins present, while Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale), Denis Menchov (Katusha), Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Lotto-Belisol) and Sammy Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) all escaped as well. Meanwhile, Greipel’s team lined him up for the sprint in spite of his earlier inclination to not take part.
Behind, the clock was ticking and GC hopes were fading as Schleck got help from the medical car. Gesink was getting assistance from former team-mate Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEdge) but was ultimately unable to keep in contact. A mish-mash of riders trying to save their own hopes for a top ten place in Paris went to the front of a large chase group that eventually formed, with Brajkovic, Scarponi, and Rolland all taking regular turns. Juan Jose Cobo (Movistar) also chipped in for Valverde, who was caught behind.
But it was to no avail, with Orica-GreenEdge driving their train two minutes up the road, and half of the race’s main favourites content to sit in their slipstream, bad luck having bitten some but not others.
In the sprint finish, Boeckmans broke his chain with 400 meters left, slamming his handlebars in frustration. Showing the poise of a veteran ten years his elder, Sagan slipped between Boeckmans and the barrier and then unleashed his sprint. Goss faded first, and then Greipel, who dropped back into the saddle as the Liquigas-Cannondale star exploded past.
Sagan moved into eighth overall, and Maxime Monfort (Radioshack-Nissan) cracked the top ten with the drop of Hesjedal, who fell all the way to 108th. Importantly for Cofidis and young rider Rein Taaramäe, the Estonian crossed 1’40” behind but was credited with the same four-second loss as the remaining race favourites.