(AP Photo/Christophe Ena). Germany’s Tony Martin, wearing the overall leader’s yellow jersey, celebrates on the podium of the fourth stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 223.5 kilometers (138.9 miles) with start in Seraing, Belgium, and finish…
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Around 10 riders hit the tarmac but as the crash happened in the final 3km, regulations state that all involved would get the same time as those in the group in front of them.
Friday’s 190.5km seventh stage takes the peloton over the rolling countryside from Livarot to Fougeres and is perfectly set up for a high-speed sprint finish.
Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali, representing Astana Pro Team, is right now the 13th at one minute and 50 seconds, while Spainiard Alberto Contador of Tinkoff Saxo remains eighth with 48 seconds behind and Nairo Quintana of Movistar was the 17th, 2:08 minutes off the pace.
Aside from Quintana, who crossed the line with a bloody hand, most of the favorites seemed unscathed.
But after he was caught by Greipel’s surge, and Peter Sagan’s late burst edged him into third place, the Manx missile’s wait for a 26th career stage win on Le Tour goes on.
“It was an interesting sprint because none of the top sprinters had any of their lead-out men to lead the sprint for them in the final 300 metres”, Greipel said.
We’d had 191km of perfectly calm riding and everyone was about to go home thankful that the conditions hadn’t caused the carnage we’ve seen in recent days.
If Martin withdraws from the race, 2013 Tour champion Chris Froome will take the yellow jersey but could decide not to wear it as a mark of respect for the injured German rider.
His Etixx-QuickStep team, without Matteo Trentin in the lead-out, were swamped by rival teams and Cavendish opted to bide his time. Froome, despite trailing the German by 12 seconds in the overall classification, will now take the maillot jaune by default as the race leader.
“It was a stressful day even for the Tour de France”, sport director Charley Wegelius said in a statement.
The Swiss rider Ferdi Kubler opted to don his national champion’s jersey instead of the yellow jersey in the 1950 Tour when the Italian race leader Fiorenzo Magni pulled out because of security fears in the wake of threats made by spectators.
After a few days of crashes and nervous racing the peloton took it relatively easy on the Normandy coastline until the last kilometre when Martin lost his balance and several leading contenders followed him down.
“[This] second [stage] victory was a real nice one and to have the green jersey for another day is quite nice for us”, he told SBS afterwards.
“It’s huge for African sport”.
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Moments later, he was sitting against a railing, staring at the wreckage of another crash as the dazed riders looked around for their bikes. He is fully committed to ride for himself and is the team’s leader, unlike Greg Van Avermaet who otherwise would have been my tip. After two stages that were filled with sprints, flat surfaces and paves, today in Stage 6 we finally get some climbs.
