Stage 6

The road

At the start

The last flat day before the hills

Greipel won again in Saint-Quentin, out of a finale that put Peter Sagan on the ground for the second day running, and Fabian Cancellara has now worn yellow for a week. Marcel Kittel has abandoned. Today is the sprinters' last afternoon in the light for the best part of a week: one categorised climb, flat everywhere else, and Metz at the end of it.

How it was won

1. 125 km to go

   The crash that ended three Tours

   Twenty-five kilometres from Metz the peloton comes down in a heap and does not get back up. Ryder Hesjedal loses more than thirteen minutes and his top ten; Fränk Schleck and Robert Gesink lose most of their race; four riders are hurt badly enough to abandon outright.

2. 21 km to go

   Zabriskie, alone and grimacing

   The break has been fighting the sprinters' teams all afternoon and David Zabriskie kicks away from the other three inside the last three kilometres. He holds it, grimacing, until thirteen hundred metres to go.

3. 3At the line

   Sagan's third

   Henderson leads Greipel out for what feels like a kilometre, and Peter Sagan simply spins past him at a cadence nobody can match. Greipel shakes his head as he crosses the line second, Goss third again. Three wins in six days, and a different celebration for each one.

The result