Mark Cavendish came up a few metres short in the second sprint finish of this Tour won by his German rival André Greipel. The Etixx-Quick Step lead-out train was once again derailed en route to the finish line, after the carriage of the secondary stoker Matteo Trentin was uncoupled by a shoulder injury sustained in a fall. Earlier, Cavendish had also been left behind when a police motorbike overturned and caused a minor pile-up from which the sprinter emerged with a broken wheel. It has been that sort of Tour.
Although he was paced back to the peloton in plenty of time for his team-mates to get their ducks in a row before the closing sprint, Trentin’s absence meant they were unable to go fast enough to get their man into position and he was forced to settle for third behind Greipel and Peter Sagan. After stage two to Zelande in the Netherlands, Cavendish blamed his team for what the owner Patrick Lefevere comically labelled “a historical fuck-up”, but in more philosophical mood on this occasion he seemed a mite too hard on himself.
“I didn’t feel great in the sprint, but nobody felt good today,” he said. “I was going OK, they just went fastest. The other day it was a mistake we made; today I was just beaten.” On being told that Holm had earlier confessed that he should have instructed Cavendish to take it easier on Tuesday’s cobbles, the rider seemed unconvinced the energy expended getting his team-mate Tony Martin into the yellow jersey was a factor in this defeat.
“It’s hard to say, but we got the yellow jersey,” he said. “I think the Tour de France is 21 days long and every day, everything you do every day, has an effect on the day after and the weeks after. But that’s what it’s about; we have the yellow jersey and we were up there yesterday and today. My confidence is good. I’ve done good all week. I’m sure we’ll get wins and I think everyone was on a good buzz when Tony got yellow.”
Earlier in the stage, cemeteries and lots of them had provided sombre reminders of the first world war as the peloton zig-zagged from Arras through exposed, rolling terrain that, 99 years ago, boasted a concentration of one million soldiers enduring the horrors of trench warfare. Well over half of them remain there and the Tour duly paid its respects to the fallen.
In a simple ceremony, the race director Chris Prudhomme, along with Sky’s Chris Froome and Peter Kennaugh, laid wreaths at the Arras memorial before racing began. It was one of several monuments and depressingly large but beautifully maintained graveyards passed by the peloton, among them the Thiepval memorial to the Missing of the Somme. Having set off in steady rain, any hopes the peloton had of enjoying a much-needed quiet day at the pedal-turning coalface were quickly dashed when it became apparent wind-induced wariness was leading to extreme tension in the bunch. With the opening 100km punctuated by one crash after another, Nacer Bouhanni was the sole casualty – but a significant one.
Signed at great expense to help the wildcard entrant Cofidis win their first Tour de France stage since 2008, the French sprinter was forced to abandon after hitting the deck in a crash involving three of his team-mates. “We are not going to spend two and a half weeks in mourning,” said the manager Yvon Sanquer, with the weariness of a man who seemed about to do exactly that.
By the standards of this Tour, it was an otherwise straightforward day’s racing. An exposed peloton was split in two by crosswinds, but no general classification contenders found themselves in a trailing group largely comprised of riders happy to be given an excuse to finish the stage at their leisure. With Martin shepherded safely home in the main bunch, Etixx-Quick Step retained the yellow jersey and have now targeted Friday’s stage from Livarot to Fougères for Cavendish, who remains quietly confident.
“The team has been great, we got the yellow jersey, we were close the days before,” he said. “We worked well the whole yearin everything we’ve done and that hasn’t changed here at the Tour de France.”
Today’s stage six takes the peloton south-west of Abbeville into Normandy and along the northern coastline to port of Le Havre. With the potential to be picture-postcard perfect and another day for the fast men or an overcast, bleak and squally spin with more crosswind-induced panic, one suspects that even after less than one week these physically and mentally jaded riders would almost certainly prefer the former.
