Cyclists crash throughout Stage 5 at Tour de France

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English speedster Mark Cavendish emerged from a crash-plagued Stage 5 to win his first Tour de France stage this year and the 16th in his career.

The “Manx Missile” sprinted past 8 or 9 cyclists in the final 150 yards to win the stage in Cap Fréhel on the blustery French coast.

Norway's Thor Hushovd finished in the tight bunch in the sprint, enabling the Garmin-Cervelo cyclist to hold onto the yellow jersey for another day.

Crashes

Although the sprint
was free of crashes, many riders went down on the 164.5km (101 miles)
route from Carhaix to Cap Fréhel. Team RadioShack's leader of record,
Janez Brajkovic, was
one of those cyclists who fell. Suffering from an apparent concussion,
he was taken to the hospital

.

Another cyclist who crashed was defending champion Alberto Contador (SaxoBank). He threw down his bicycle in disgust and was quickly riding another one.

In interviews after the race, the cyclists attributed the narrow roads and undulating terrain, as well as ever-changing wind direction, for the crashes.

Breakaways

A four-man breakaway comprising Jose Gutierrez (Movistar), Tristan Valentin (Cofidis), Sebastien Turgot (Europcar) and Antony Delaplace (Saur-Sojasun) got away early in the stage. They were reeled in with about 30 miles left in the race, much earlier than the 3-mile mark for the capture on Tuesday's stage.

That allowed an attack by two Frenchmen, Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) and Jeremy Roy (FDJ), with about 20 miles to go. Roy had been aggressive in a break on Tuesday, and Voeckler has a history of winning stages this way.

The peloton allowed them to gain about a minute. Then team members from sprinters' teams — Lampre, HTC-Highroad, Garmin-Cervelo, and Sky — slowly narrowed that gap. Voeckler struggled on solo for awhile, but was finally caught with less than 2km remaining.

Once again the HTC-Highroad leadout train jumped the rails when one of its cyclists got too far ahead. But Cavendish was in a good position to take care of his own sprint by then and had a clear path to pass a host of others, beating a clearly disappointed first-stage winner Phillippe Gilbert at the finish line.

Top 10
overall

1 Thor Hushovd (Nor)
Team Garmin-Cervelo
2 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team — 1
second
3 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek — 4 seconds

4 David Millar (GBr) Team Garmin-Cervelo — 8
seconds
5 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Team RadioShack — 10
seconds
6 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling — 10
seconds
7 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Sky Procycling –12
seconds
8 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling –12
seconds
9 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Leopard Trek — 12 seconds
10. Andy Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek –12
seconds
10 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Leopard Trek –12
seconds

…….

39. Alberto
Contador (Spa) SaxoBank — 1:42