Stage 5

The road

At the start

Into the Pyrenees, Marie-Blanque last

Five days in and the whole Tour is still stacked inside twenty seconds — Adam Yates in yellow, Tadej Pogačar and Simon Yates at six, Jonas Vingegaard at 17 — and after today it will not be. From Pau the race climbs the Col de Soudet, the first hors-catégorie climb of the race, then the short, cruel Col de Marie-Blanque, whose summit and its bonus seconds come 18 kilometres from Laruns.

How it was won

1. 1146 km to go

   An early split

   The flat run out of Pau sparks a nervous early split, Van Aert prominent at the front, before the race settles for the first haul into the high Pyrenees.

2. 222 km to go

   Marie-Blanque

   Four kilometres from the summit Felix Gall attacks the break; only Jai Hindley can follow, and the Australian soon presses on alone toward the top.

3. 320 km to go

   Vingegaard's first blow

   A kilometre and a half from the summit Vingegaard delivers a familiar, savage acceleration that Pogačar simply cannot match. He zooms into the mist and takes over a minute out of his rival in a few brutal kilometres.

4. 418 km to go

   Hindley crests alone

   Hindley drops Gall to crest the Marie-Blanque first and plunge to Laruns for the stage win and the yellow jersey.

5. 5At the line

   Laruns

   Hindley takes yellow, 47 seconds up; but the day's real story is that Vingegaard is suddenly 53 seconds clear of Pogačar, the momentum of the whole Tour swinging to the Dane.

The result