A flat stage into Normandy featured a classic contest for the sprinters Thursday as Spanish cyclist Oscar Freire won Stage 5 of the Tour de France.
Teams from Milram, Liquigas, QuickStep and Credit Agricole set the pace as the peloton sped into Caen, but the racer from the Rabobank team grabbed the victory from yellow jersey holder Tom Boonen of QuickStep.
As a consolation, Boonen kept the yellow jersey and will wear it again on Friday.
Two riders who must have suffered disappointment at the end were Samuel Dumoulin(AG2R) of France and Bjorn Schroder (Milram) of Germany. Their two-man breakaway at the 25-mile mark gained nearly 13 minutes on the peloton during the day, but was swept up under 2 miles from the finish.
The biggest scare of the 140-mile race came about 10 miles from finish when Discovery cyclist Egoi Martinez appeared to touch wheels and hit the pavement. He was sitting in 5th place overall after Wednesday's aggressive ride at the front of a breakaway helped him pick up bonus times.
A race doctor treated him in the road, and later attended to him some more after Martinez latched onto his car for a lift back up to the peloton. At the end of the day, the Spanish cyclist was placed in 88th overall, 1 minute and 39 seconds behind the leader.
Meanwhile, Discovery cyclist George Hincapie dropped back to 4th place overall, 17 seconds behind race leader Boonen. Another American, Floyd Landis, rose up to 8th place overall, 28 seconds behind.
The Top 10 overall are:
1. Tom Boonen (Belgium) QuickStep
2. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, 13 seconds behind
3. Oscar Freire (Sp), Rabobank, 17 seconds
4. George Hincapie (USA), Discovery Channel, 17 seconds
5. Thor Hushovd (Nor) Credit Agricole, 19 seconds
6. Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon, 24 seconds,
7. Paolo Savoldelli (Ita) Discovery, 27 seconds
8. Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak, 28 seconds
9. Vladimir Karpets (Rus), Caisse d'Epargne, 29 seconds
10. Serhiy Honchar (Ukr), T-Mobile, 29 seconds
The standings for the remaining 7 American cyclists:
4. George Hincapie (Discovery), 17 seconds behind
8. Floyd Landis (Phonak), 28 seconds behind
16. David Zabriskie (CSC), 35 seconds
20. Bobby Julich (CSC), 37 seconds
23. Christian Vandevelde (CSC), 40 seconds
25. Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), 40 seconds
141. Chris Horner, (Davitamon-Lotto), 8 minutes, 34 seconds
Robbie McEwen, the winner of two stages, holds the green points jersey (just 1 point ahead of Boonen), Jerome Pineau (France) of Bouygues Telecom retains the polka dot mountain jersey, Marcus Fothen (Germany) of Gerolsteiner holds the best young rider's jersey, and the Discovery team holds the best team classification. Dumoulin, who appeared to do most of the work in the breakaway, was awarded the most combative cyclist award for the stage.
More results and updates at CyclingNews and VeloNews.
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