Sagan’s too fast as Sky play it safe
WORLD champion Peter Sagan claimed his second victory in the opening five days of the Tour de France. He powered 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 of Belgium.
‘I have to say thanks to all of my team-mates again,’ said Slovakian Sagan. ‘They controlled the race from the middle of the stage and put me in the ideal position two kilometres out from the finish.
‘Greg started his sprint really early and that provided the perfect launchpad for me to sprint.’
The cat-and-mouse game which is being played out by the favourites for the yellow jersey continued.
All of them 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.
‘Everyone knew that this was going to be a tricky day,’ said defending champion Froome. ‘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 they kept us right up at the front. I’m really happy with how we all performed.’
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 Team 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 Mûr de Bretagne twice and we always see a bit of action there,’ said Froome. ‘I’m really relishing it.’
Meanwhile, Sky’s Luke Rowe dismissed an incident in which he snatched away a fan’s banner protesting against his team at the Tour de France as ‘a bit of banter’.
The local resident, Didier Bregardes, told reporters his sign was a protest about the way Sky had handled the Salbutamol case involving Froome.