Key Takeaways: Tour de France Stage 5

Breaking down how a history-making sprint was won

Mark Cavendish made history after weaving his way through a crowded field, ultimately finding and shooting through a gap that he knew would appear before anyone else, to win a record-breaking thirty-five career Tour de France stage wins in the small Rhône valley town of Saint Vulbas. Behind, Jasper Philipsen finished second after struggling to follow the 39-year-old’s wheel through the chaotic traffic of the messy, high-speed sprint finish. With the sport’s current premier sprinter unable to follow a middle-aged veteran who hadn’t won a Tour stage in three years simply because he was dialed-in and motivated to finally end the speculation about his ability to beat Eddy Merckx’s long-standing record, Cavendish’s legacy as the best sprinter of all-time was firmly cemented, assuming there was any doubt remaining. And, coming just five days after his participation in this Tour de France appeared to be imperiled due to an overheating incident on Stage 1 that saw him dropped from the peloton just kilometers after the start, the win emphasized the dramatic flair that has made Cavendish so popular, and separated him from the rest of the bunch, throughout his career.

The fight for the GC finally took a break, with no changes in position to time won and lost amongst the favorites. This was ideal since it gave Cavendish’s achievement room to breathe and command the full attention of the day.

Stage Top Five:
1) Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) +0
2) Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin - Deceuninck) +0
3) Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) +0
4) Arnaud de Lie (Lotto Dstny) +0
5) Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich PostNL) +0

Current GC Top Five:
1) Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) +0
2) Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) +45
3) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +50
4) Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) +1’10
5) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +1’14

Green (Points) Jersey
1) Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty)-102pts
2) Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek)-94pts
3) Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility)-87pts

Stage 5 Race Notebook

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59.3km-to-go: After another strange opening to the stage where no teams/riders wanted to volunteer to get into a doomed breakaway. Eventually, a reluctant move is nearly forced off the front, and the peloton rolls along fairly slowly until it reaches the intermediate sprint. While Visma has Jonas Vingegaard riding at the front of the group, UAE has Tadej Pogačar sitting mid-pack. This poor positioning and his team’s failure to communicate a major piece of road furniture means that he nearly collides with a traffic island and is only saved by an impressive piece of bike handling (which unfortunately causes a domino effect that takes out a few riders behind).

3.4km: The speed is incredibly high in the final few kilometers (70+km/hr), with the sprinters’ teams fighting to be at the front. Mark Cavendish’s Astana team is doing everything possible to keep Cavendish positioned just a little further back in the field.

1.6km: Cavendish is quickly running out of teammates but is in solid position as they approach the 1km banner.

750m: The run-in to the sprint has been so fast that everyone has depleted their leadout trains, with Cavendish (Astana), Philipsen (Alpecin), and Fabio Jakobsen (DSM) each having one teammate. However, Cavendish has been separated from his teammate and is freelancing through the field.

600m: With the lack of dedicated leadouts, the front starts to form into a ‘blob’, which makes positioning incredibly difficult. Isolated from his team, Cavendish is sticking to Philipsen’s wheel, who has the strongest remaining leadout in Mathieu van der Poel, who is getting to the front.

500m: Against the barriers on the right-hand side, Cavendish makes an impressive move to push by Fernando Gaviria and ensure he is on Philipsen’s wheel as Van der Poel begins his leadout.

400m: However, as soon as Van der Poel hits the front, he immediately decelerates and sits up, which leaves Philipsen suddenly without a leadout.

400m (frozen): Cavendish recognizes this problem before Philipsen and traverses the group, looking for a new wheel.

350m: Just a few moments later, Cavendish’s early reaction means that he has quickly outmaneuvered Philipsen and is now in a superior position with Philipsen stuck on his hip.

200m: When we unfreeze it, we can see that Cavendish quickly leverages this advantage to surge forward, seeing a gap about to open up, while Philipsen is stuck behind, pinned against the barriers.

150m: This anticipation means that when the gap finally opens, Cavendish is in the perfect position to sprint into wide open space on the left-hand side of the road.

100m: By sprinting to the other side of the road into open space, he is using the field as a sort of screen to open space between himself and Philipsen, which means the Belgian won’t be able to gain an advantage from his draft.

Finish: Philipsen eventually gets on terms in Cavendish’s draft, but the time Cavendish bought himself with his maneuver means there isn’t enough time to use this draft to come around him. Cavendish crosses the line for a historic record-breaking 35th career Tour de France stage win, with Philipsen in second and Alexander Kristoff impressively getting a distant third. Behind, Mads Pedersen suffered a bad crash.

Three Key Takeaways