On stage 4 of the Tour de France, Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) was tearing it up in the high mountains, ripping the legs off his rivals to set up team leader Primoz Roglic. A day later he was Jumbo-Visma’s man for the bunch sprint — a sprint he won to make it two stage wins in as many days for the Dutch outfit. Strade Bianche winner, Milan-San Remo winner, mountain super-domestique, bunch-sprint winner, time trial monster — is there are more complete rider than Wout van Aert?
Today’s photo gallery brings you all the action from stage 5 of the 2020 Tour de France, a stage that, bizarrely, didn’t feature a breakaway.
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- EF Pro Cycling led the teams classification heading into stage 5, hence the yellow helmets.
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- What’s the collective noun for cycling photographers? How many of these great snappers can you name? (Ironically for a photo of cycling photographers, this shot is slightly out of focus. Kristof puts that down to it being a “timer-selfie”.)
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- Egan Bernal makes his way to sign-on.
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- Astana did a good job with Luis Leon Sanchez’s national champ’s kit.
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- Speaking of national champ’s kits … Riders shouldn’t be allowed to wear kits that are the same colour as the race leader. Discuss.
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- Remarkably, there was no breakaway on stage 5.
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- Eventual stage winner Wout van Aert described it as “maybe the easiest stage I ever did in a cycling race”.
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- Thankfully there were some great rock walls en route for the riders to check out.
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- Mmmm, strata-ific. (Or maybe not? Any geologists in the house?)
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- We see you, Pierre Rolland.
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- Two local community workers watch the race on a phone while waiting for riders to come past.
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- As predicted the stage came down to a bunch sprint.
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- Sunweb rode a mighty leadout for Cees Bol, who sprinted wonderfully.
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- Wout van Aert was his only real challenger …
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- … and just managed to pip Bol on the line.
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- A day after shredding the peloton in the mountains for teammate (and eventual stage winner) Primoz Roglic, Van Aert took a sprint stage win.
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- Is there a better bike racer in the world right now?
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- Meanwhile Sam Bennett became the first Irishman in 31 years to wear the green jersey after winning the intermediate sprint and finishing third on the stage.
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- With no breakaway, deciding a “most combative rider” was a little challenging. Wout Poels was given the nod for battling on with a broken rib.
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- Julian Alaphilippe looked set for another day in yellow until commissaires announced the Frenchman had been docked 20 seconds for taking a bidon after the 20 km-to-go cut off. Adam Yates now leads the Tour de France.
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