SAGAN’S TOO FAST AS SKY PLAY IT SAFE

WORLD champion Peter Sagan powered to his second victory in the first five days of the Tour de France. He surged past Italy’s Sonny Colbrelli on a testing uphill finish in Quimper yesterday after the pair had countered an attack by race leader Greg van Avermaet. ‘I have to say thanks to all of my team-mates again. They controlled the race from the middle of the stage and put me in the ideal position two kilometres out from the finish,’ said Sagan. ‘Greg started his sprint really early and that provided the perfect launchpad for me to sprint.’ The cat-and-mouse game being played by the favourites for the yellow jersey continued. All finished in the group led in by Sagan — with Team Sky’s Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas among them. The British pair were happy to have safely negotiated a stage that undulated almost from start to finish on narrow, twisting roads. Froome said: ‘Everyone knew this was going to be a tricky day. It was the kind of stage where something could quite easily go wrong and you could find yourself losing 30 or 40 seconds if you were caught out of position. ‘Our team rode fantastically. They took the race on in the last 20 to 30 kilometres and kept us right up at the front and out of trouble.’ Although Thomas dropped from third to fourth in the overall standings as a result of Belgium’s Philippe Gilbert earning four bonus seconds for taking third place in the sprint, the Welshman was also pleased to see how well Sky’s plan to keep their leaders out of trouble worked out. ‘The boys did a cracking job,’ said Thomas. Today’s sixth stage should see an end to the shadow-boxing between the favourites. ‘We’re tackling the climb at Mur de Bretagne twice and we always see a bit of action there,’ said Froome. ‘I’m really looking forward to it.’