Tour De France 2012 Stage 5 Standings and Results: Andre Greipel Does It Again

Stage 5 of the 2012 Tour de France, from Rouen to Saint-Quentin, is yet another one tailor-made for sprinters—almost pancake flat and having only the slightest of uphill rides into the finish.

The stage started under the shadow of yet more allegations against Lance Armstrong.  According to The Age, a report in the Dutch daily newspaper, De Telegraaf, named George Hincapie (BMC), Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Sharp), David Zabriskie (Garmin-Sharp) and Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) as the riders who made said allegations.

No one who follows cycling will be surprised to hear that a breakaway was designed out of the desire to get the sponsor’s name in front of the television cameras, rather than the expectation that it had any chances of going on to take the stage victory.

The art of the breakaway is something that the French teams, in particular, have mastered in order to maximise their sponsor’s exposure in a forum where it has the greatest impact.

In a deviation from the script, the breakaway was held in reach before being swallowed up inside the last 100 metres.

Despite the ever-present threat of rain, the stage was largely incident free. It saw nothing like the horror crashes of the previous stages: Konstantsin Siutsou with a broken leg, Jose Rojas with a broken collarbone and Maarten Tjallingii with a broken hip.

In a burst of rare courage and testament to the tremendous power of adrenaline, Tjallingii actually finished the stage with his injury.

Now that’s tough!

Mark Cavendish, once again, showed his intention to beat the pack in the remaining intermediate sprint.

Green jersey holder Peter Sagan again showed that he’s no match for the true sprinters on a flat road.

Stage 5 was always going to be about the final sprint.

The front of the peloton in the closing kilometres was a sight to behold.

Where the final sprint usually has one, or possibly two teams at the head of the pack driving the peloton home, there were five or six teams today, all hammering along at breakneck speed.

Team Sky was delivering Cavendish, Lampre had Alessandr Petacchi, Lotto Belisol had Andre Grepel, Orica-Green Edge had Matt Goss. It was precision riding at its best.

And then came another crash.

At 2.7 km to go, Tyler Farrar (Garmin Sharp Barracuda) crashed heavily, interrupting the run into the finish and taking down a number of other riders.

Most importantly, Peter Sagan was held up by the crash. He didn’t lose time, but he didn’t compete for points—which is a lot more important.

The final sprint was slightly uphill and Andre Greipel muscled his way to victory ahead of Matt Goss. Cavendish came in fifth on the stage.

The overall classification remains unchanged after Stage 5.

1.	CANCELLARA Fabian	RADIOSHACK-NISSAN	24h 45' 32''
2.	WIGGINS Bradley	SKY PROCYCLING	24h 45' 39''	+ 00' 07''
3.	CHAVANEL Sylvain	OMEGA PHARMA-QUICK STEP	24h 45' 39''	+ 00' 07''
4.	VAN GARDEREN Tejay	BMC RACING TEAM	24h 45' 42''	+ 00' 10''
5.	BOASSON HAGEN Edvald	SKY PROCYCLING	24h 45' 43''	+ 00' 11''
6.	MENCHOV Denis	KATUSHA TEAM	24h 45' 45''	+ 00' 13''
7.	EVANS Cadel	BMC RACING TEAM	24h 45' 49''	+ 00' 17''
8.	NIBALI Vincenzo	LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE	24h 45' 50''	+ 00' 18''
9.	HESJEDAL Ryder	GARMIN-SHARP-BARRACUDA	24h 45' 50''	+ 00' 18''
10.	KLÖDEN Andréas	RADIOSHACK-NISSAN	24h 45' 51''	+ 00' 19''