Goss goes too early, Sagan tangled in crash
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Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) sprinted to victory at stage five of the 2012 Tour de France in the town of Saint-Quentin for his second consecutive stage win. He took advantage of a flat and fast run in and swooped very late to deny Matthew Goss (Orica-GreenEdge), JJ Haedo (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff) and Mark Cavendish (Sky).
For the second consecutive day the finale was marred by a large crash less than 3km from the finish, with the most high profile victim being points leader Peter Sagan, who was well-placed at the time but was forced to check his momentum dramatically as several riders hit the floor around him.
"I'm happy because I won another stage in the Tour de France," said Greipel. "There was a bit of a crash and I was behind it at 3k to go, but Greg Henderson was waiting for me. The Lotto Belisol train was working perfectly today. It was a hard sprint, I think it was one of the hardest sprints I've ever done."
The majority of the race was dominated by a four-man breakaway, who went clear just three kilometres into the stage. Matthieu Lagadnous (FDJ-BigMat), Pablo Urtasun (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Jan Ghyselinck (Cofidis) and Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun) rode on the front for over 190km before Ghyselinck made a bold attack for the finish line with just over 1km to go. The Belgian could not hang on, however, and was passed by the marauding pack in the final 100 metres.
Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Nissan) retains the yellow jersey that he has held since the prologue last Saturday.
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