Stage 5

The road

At the start

Ypres, and fifteen kilometres of pavé

The stage the peloton has been talking about since the route was announced: out of Ypres, a century after the war that erased it, over fifteen kilometres of Paris-Roubaix cobbles to Arenberg. Rain is falling across northern France and the sectors will be slick. Vincenzo Nibali leads by two seconds, with Froome — wrist strapped from yesterday's crash — Contador and Valverde all on the same time. Nobody is safe.

How it was won

1. 194 km to go

   The champion climbs off

   Greasy roads and raw nerves cause crash after crash before the pavé is even reached — Démare, Greipel and Kittel all go down. But it is Chris Froome, already injured from stage 4 and down twice more this morning, who stops at the roadside, gets into the car and ends his title defence.

2. 256 km to go

   Cannondale light the fuse

   Two sectors have been struck off because of the weather and it has only made everyone more nervous. Approaching the pavé Sagan's Cannondale team hit the front and split the peloton at the very entrance to the Hell of the North.

3. 352 km to go

   Vanmarcke's turn damns Contador

   On the second sector Sep Vanmarcke puts in a vicious turn for Belkin. Nibali, Van Den Broeck and Kwiatkowski hold the wheel; Alberto Contador, Valverde and the rest are left to chase their own tails with 52km still to race.

4. 441 km to go

   Off the road at Bersée

   Talansky and Van Den Broeck slide off the pavé and out of the Nibali group; Contador is already 45 seconds down and floundering. Nibali's own teammate Iglinskiy falls directly in front of him and the Italian sidesteps it as if he had seen it coming.

5. 520 km to go

   Down to fifteen men

   Punctures and crashes have whittled the head of the race to fifteen riders, Westra dragging them along after the break was swallowed. Twenty kilometres from Arenberg, Contador is almost two minutes adrift and his Tour is broken.

6. 65 km to go

   Boom goes at Wallers

   Outnumbered three to one by Astana, Lars Boom lets Westra burn himself out and then jumps on the mud-slicked cobbles at Wallers with five kilometres left. A former cyclo-cross world champion, he picks his lines through the slop while Nibali and Fuglsang can only watch him ride away.

7. 7At the line

   Arenberg, and a Tour turned upside down

   Boom wins in the shadow of the forest, Fuglsang second, Nibali third at 18 seconds and untouchable in yellow. Contador concedes 2:37, Porte, Talansky, Van Garderen and Valverde around two minutes — a single afternoon of pavé has redrawn the whole race.

The result