Tour de France: Stage 5

Another supposedly flat sprinters' stage and another unexpected result. Every flat stage, many of us watch and wonder why a few crazy riders get out there and work hard all day just to get caught by Brien's "beast", the peloton. But today's stage showed why they do it, as Thomas Voeckler and Mikhail Ignatiev edged the peloton at the line by the slimmest of margins. After leading all day in a breakaway of 6 riders, Voeckler had enough energy left to edge the peloton by 7 seconds. Ignatiev finished second in front of the sprinters, but it was so close that he received the same time as the entire peloton.

Can anyone out-sprint Mark Cavendish?

Today's results again force us to wonder about the strength (or the lack thereof) of this year's peloton. Two days ago in crosswinds, Columbia broke away en masse from the peloton and complained that no other teams have been pulling the sprinters' teams forward. In stage 5, the sprinters' teams were unable to reel the breakaway in for a sprint finish with a stage victory on the line. You could blame it on crosswinds and the splintering of the peloton at times, fatigue after the team time trial, or the weakness of the bottom half of the peloton. But the reality is that the teams of the major sprinters were rarely seen at the front and failed to do the job for their men most of the race. Astana and SaxoBank did the bulk of the work, and Cancellara was even seen pulling the peloton, a shockingly rare sight to see the yellow jersey leading the full pack over flat roads. Where are QuickStep, Cervelo Test Team, Milram, etc.? Anything truly is possible with this weak peloton. We'll have to watch each and every stage this year.

Rider of the Day
This has to go to Thomas Voeckler, winning the stage from the breakaway with a huge effort. It's always nice to see a Frenchman get a stage in his home country, mainly because few French riders or teams will figure in the rest of the race.

It's worth noting here that even though the sprint was not for the yellow jersey, Cavendish and Team Columbia again won it. His third place finish extended his lead with the green jersey and made Team Columbia 3 for 3 in sprints this year. Pretty impressive.

Reason to love the Tour #5: The Breakaway
Almost every stage, 5 or 10 riders spend all day out in front like rabbits for the peloton, hoping against hope that the peloton will screw up. Usually these are riders with no other chance at glory, workers frequently from lesser teams, nonames of the professional ranks. Each and every victory by one of these men is the highlight of their career. How often in sports does the last man on the roster even make it on the field or the slowest guy on the field get to score the winning point/goal/shot? If this happened during the Olympics, we would never hear the end of how heartwarming this longshot story is. (Granted, Voeckler is not that unheard of, but these comments are true for most breakaway members.)