Tour de France Results/Standings

Thomas maintains five-second lead

teams were trying to reel in the four escapees and that incident disrupted the charge, and almost gave the breakaway a chance to go all the way.

But once the sprint happened, it was a chaotic one with no-one’s sprint train able to function and set up their leader.

“Our leadout wasn’t perfect but other leadouts weren’t either,” said the burly German, who wept with joy after crossing the line.

“I tried to do my best but all sprinters were on their own today.”

Frenchman Arnaud Demare took second place with Andre Greipel of Germany

(Left): Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas celebrates his overall leader yellow jersey on the podium at the end of the 203,5 km second stage of the 104th edition of the Tour de France cycling race on July 2, between Dusseldorf, Germany and Liege, Belgium. (Right): Germany’s Marcel Kittel celebrates as he crosses the finish line at the end of the 203,5 km second stage of the Tour de France cycling race on July 2, between Dusseldorf, Germany and

Liege, Belgium. (AFP)

third, and Briton Mark Cavendish fourth.

With king of the mountains points up for grabs just 6 kms into the stage, the attacks were launched from the gun as four riders escaped into the day’s breakaway.

American Taylor Phinney, in his first Tour, snatched the first mountain point atop the Grafenberg climb to put him in pole position to claim the polkadot jersey.

Frenchmen Thomas Boudat, Laurent Pichon and Yoann Offredo joined Phinney but the quartet never managed to eke out a lead of more than three and a half minutes in miserable, wet conditions.

Their lead had stabilised at around two and a half minutes as they left Germany and entered Belgium, where things got even wetter, 145 kms into the stage. They were close to being caught with around 30 kms left when a massive crash in the peloton took down a number of top riders, including Foome, Thomas, Australian Richie Porte and Frenchman Romain Bardet.

A Katusha rider working for Alexander Kristoff was the first to fall, taking down around 15-20 other riders too.

Thomas was quickly back up and away but Froome needed to chase hard to get back to the peloton.