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Two problems. They launched immediately before the race swung into a tree-lined section and, in truth, everybody was ready for a move like that. The status quo remains, with a nervous peloton still tightly bunched.
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Today marks the 25th anniversary of Lance Armstrong’s first day in the yellow jersey on the 1999 Tour de France, the first of seven straight wins that would later be stricken from the record books when he was finally sanctioned in 2012. Armstrong and manager Johan Bruyneel were given lifetime bans, but they haven’t gone away – nor, indeed, have many of Armstrong’s 1999 teammates, some of whom remain prominent figures in cycling today. Patrick Fletcher has pieced the story of what everybody on the 1999 US Postal team is doing now, and you can read his feature here.
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A Welsh flag fluttering on the roadside confirms the crosswind at this point. Delegations from Visma, UAE and Ineos are all massed towards the front, though they appear to be positioned for safety rather than with the express intention of trying to force an echelon.
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Intermediate sprint – result
Girmay’s points classification lead is up to ten points over Pedersen thanks to his second place in that intermediate sprint.
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Abrahamsen and Zingle continue to shoot the breeze out in front, and the peloton is drawing inexorably closer. 45 seconds the gap.
The intermediate sprint in Cormatin is just over 10km away, and there will be an injection of pace from the bunch as it draws closer. Meanwhile, the rain has abated, the sun has re-emerged and the road beneath their wheels is dry.
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Zingle was involved in a notable incident in yesterday’s finale – or perhaps more accurately, he helped to limit the impact of an incident. When Mads Pedersen crashed in the finishing straight, Zingle had the presence of mind and reflexes to bunnyhop the fallen Dane rather than ride into him, and that act might well have prevented bringing down more riders. Simone Giuliani has more here.
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Abrahamsen certainly isn’t hanging around. After losing the green jersey to Biniam Girmay yesterday, the Norwegian seems to be keen to pick up maximum points at the intermediate sprint after 30km. He presses on the pace with Zingle, and the gap is stretching out.
Zingle presses on over the other side. Abrahamsen might have been expected to sit up after the climb, but the Norwegian opts to come through and give Zingle a few turns. The two escapees have half a minute in hand on the bunch.
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A polka-dotted Abrahamsen clips off the front of the bunch with 700m of the climb remaining in search of the solitary mountains point at the summit, though he’s being hunted by Axel Zingle (Cofidis) .
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The peloton is rolling though the light rain shower, still travelling at a decent rate of knots. Unlike the tentative opening to the previous sprint stages, there’s a tension in the air here, thanks largely to the early climb and the early intermediate sprint.
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It’s 22°C at the start in Mâcon, where the sun has poked through the clouds. The wind is little more than a breeze for now, at 16kph, and so any echelons, if they come, will surely be for the final hour, when the wind is forecast to pick up. Yesterday, like on stage 3 to Turin, there was a very low-key start to proceedings – although the early category 4 climb and the intermediate sprint in Cormatin after 31km might make for a more intense opening today.
The peloton has rolled away from the start in Mâcon and is navigating the neutralised zone.
The roll-out is just 25 minutes away, and there will have been a lot of discussion on the team buses in Mâcon about this stage’s potential for echelons. Those in the know suggest the opening part of the stage and the last 45km are most exposed to crosswinds. Vigilance will be key.
Eddy Merckx has paid his own tribute to Mark Cavendish for claiming sole ownership of the record for Tour stage wins. “Congratulations to Mark Cavendish on this historic achievement! Such a nice guy to break my record,” Merckx said in a post on Instagram. James Moultrie has more here.
General classification after stage 5
Today’s run from Mâcon to Dijon is a flat one, with just a single category 4 climb – the early Col du Bois Clair – on the agenda. Another bunch sprint would appear to be inevitable. The peloton rolls out at 13.35 CET, with the race scheduled to hit kilometre zero at 13.50.
Mads Pedersen crashed in the finishing straight yesterday, but Lidl-Trek have confirmed that the Dane is fit enough to start today’s stage.
Coach Vasilis Anastopoulos was a key figure in Cavendish’s surprising renaissance at QuickStep in 2021 and he has been essential to the Manxman’s success again here after joining Astana-Qazaqstan’s staff during the off-season. He introduced spells of altitude training to Cavendish’s preparation this year, and the sprinter also spent sustained spells at Anastopoulos’ home in Greece in the build-up to the Tour. Anastopoulos was confident in Cavendish’s Tour prospects after poring over his training files from the week after the Tour de Suisse. “The data I had told me was capable of doing that,” he said. “He came back to Greece immediately after the Tour de Suisse, and we did sprint work for the whole week because of all the climbs he had done before.” Read the full story here.
When Cavendish walked back his retirement decision last summer, the prospect of a record-breaking 35th stage win seemed the obvious draw, even if lead-out man Michael Mørkøv suggested to Cyclingnews earlier this year that surpassing Eddy Merckx’s mark was more of an excuse to keep racing than a burning goal in itself. Certainly, Cavendish has no intention of turning the rest of this Tour into a lap of honour now that feat has been achieved. Today’s finale in Dijon offers another opportunity. “First and foremost, I’ll try and enjoy it and secondly we’ll try and be successful again because that’s fundamentally our job,” Cavendish said. “I love this race, I always have loved this race. I love this race when I ride, I love this race when I watch it, and I’ll always give it 100%.” Dani Ostanek has more here.
Welcome to Cyclingnews‘ live coverage of stage 6 of the 2024 Tour de France. Tadej Pogačar holds the yellow jersey, but most headlines are for Mark Cavendish this morning after he broke the record he shared with Eddy Merckx and won his 35th Tour stage in Saint-Vulbas yesterday. Stephen Farrand was on the scene for us and sends this account.
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
