Manxman Of The Day

Finally, a day for the sprinters.

Having missed out on the opportunity in Nantes because of a successful four-man breakaway, the sprinters’ teams finally got it together and caught the last remnant, Nicolas Vogondy (Agritubel), of a three-man break in the final 300m before the finish in Châteauroux.

Similar to his teammate Romain Feillu on Stage 3, Vogondy, the champion of France, set out on a suicidal sojourn with Lilian Jegou (Française des Jeux) and Florent Brard (Cofidis) to cover the 232km distance from Cholet to Châteauroux the fastest. But the learned peloton timed its efforts perfectly today.

At the end of the longest stage in this year’s Tour, it would be Bob Stapleton’s powerful Team Columbia that would organize the chase and ultimately deliver the goods in the form of Mark Cavendish.

The 23-year old from the Isle of Man, Manxman edged out Tour veterans Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and Erik Zabel (Milram) to add a Tour de France stage to his pair of victories at this year’s Giro d’Italia.

The man of day, however, may not ultimately prove to be the man of the Tour as Cavendish will likely go the way of an early Tour departure given his Olympic prospects in the Madison with teammate Bradley Wiggins [the two winning the World Championships in the same event earlier this year].

In an interview with William Fotheringham (The Guardian) in Brest, Cavendish alluded to an early exit. Although he intends to stay in his second Tour as long as he can and quite possibly contend for the sprint on the Champs Ellysees, his body may tell him otherwise.

"I'll aim to finish. It's not fair on the organisers, the team or the sponsor to race with the aim of not finishing. If I'm too tired I won't finish, and if I'm not good enough I won't make the time limit, so maybe I won't finish, but mentally I'm aiming to do 21 days."

Although there were a few crashes, mostly minor, to several Tour contenders, there was no movement in the overall classification.

For those, like me, who picked Mauricio Soler (Barloworld) to re-claim the maillot a pois rouge this year, forget it. Soler abandoned today after another crash.

Results
1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia
2 Oscar Freire Gomez (Spa) Rabobank
3 Erik Zabel (Ger) Team Milram

Overall After Stage 5
1 Stefan Schumacher (Ger) Gerolsteiner
2 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia
3 David Millar (GBr) Team Garmin-Chipotle p/b H30
4 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto
5 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team CSC - Saxo Bank
6 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Team Garmin-Chipotle p/b H30
7 George Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia
8 Thomas Lövkvist (Swe) Team Columbia
9 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas
10 José Iván Gutierrez (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne

Next: Stage 6 - Thursday, July 10 - Aigurande - Super Besse (195.5km). It may not be the high mountains, but the Massif Central should provide a good test for the those not ready to go uphill.


More:
FoxSports – Cavendish takes 1st Tour victory
Cyclingnews – Cavendish claims first Tour stage
Velonews – Cavendish outkicks bunch to win his first Tour stage

Photo: AP