Stage 5

The road

At the start

A straight road to Saint-Quentin

André Greipel opened his account in Rouen out of a sprint half the field crashed in, and Fabian Cancellara keeps the yellow jersey by seven seconds from Bradley Wiggins. Maarten Tjallingii does not start. Today has no difficulties at all — a wide, straight run east to Saint-Quentin, ideal for hunting down a break, and a finish Mark Cavendish has won three times in the last four Tours.

How it was won

1. 13 km to go

   Another crash inside three kilometres

   For the second day running the finale falls apart before the sprint even starts. Peter Sagan is beautifully placed when riders start going down around him; he checks, a loose bike takes him with it, and the green jersey gets up bruised and furious about points rather than skin.

2. 2At the line

   Greipel doubles up

   The four escapees hold seconds into the last three kilometres and Ghyselinck panics and jumps at a kilometre out; Urtasun comes past him and is himself swallowed inside the last hundred metres. Greipel comes very late off Henderson's wheel and denies Goss, Haedo and Cavendish.

The result