Stage 5

The road

At the start

Nineteen kilometres of Roubaix pavé

Wout van Aert rode away from everybody on the Cap Blanc-Nez and leads Yves Lampaert by 25 seconds, Tadej Pogačar by 32. Today is the day the Tour has been waiting for and half the peloton has been dreading: eleven sectors of Paris-Roubaix cobbles, 19.4 kilometres of them, all in the second half of the stage and the worst of them saved for last. It is dry, which means dust, and a puncture here is final.

How it was won

1. 1117 km to go

   Into the north with the break gone

   The day's escape is clear through Merignies with the cobbles still ahead. Behind them the GC teams are already fighting for position on roads only a lane wide.

2. 242 km to go

   Jumbo's three-way bike swap

   Vingegaard has a mechanical approaching the sector at Abscon and takes Van Hooydonck's bike, which is far too big. He swaps again with Kruijswijk, and when the team car arrives all three stand in the road performing a frantic circular exchange until everyone is on a machine that fits.

3. 330 km to go

   Roglič goes down at the roundabout

   Just before the longest four-star sector of the day, the bunch is pinched through a roundabout and Primož Roglič hits the deck. He is swept past by the Vingegaard group and left to fend for himself — a podium contender's Tour effectively ending on a traffic island.

4. 418 km to go

   Pogačar rides away on the pave

   On the rough four-star strip from Tilloy-lès-Marchiennes to Sars-et-Rosières, Stuyven hits the front and Pogačar goes after him. Nobody else can hold the wheel. The two bounce clear as a duo, half a minute up in a matter of hundreds of metres, while Vingegaard chases and Roglič haemorrhages minutes behind. The cobbles hand the Tour to the man who least needed the help.

5. 57 km to go

   Van Aert drags it back level

   Just before the final sector the chase makes contact and Pogačar's advantage is neutralised, Van Aert and Laporte drilling it on the tarmac. Roglič, though, drifts to a minute and a half down and stays there.

6. 6At the line

   Simon Clarke wins the cobbled lottery

   Powless springs the sprint from the back with 900 metres left and Boasson Hagen burns himself out chasing him down. That leaves Van der Hoorn and Simon Clarke to fight it out, and the Australian takes the biggest win of his career at Arenberg Porte du Hainaut.

The result