Tour de France

Van Avermaet wins after alone journey

The first mountainous stage of the Tour mess rolls the box. Greg Van Avermaet takes the opportunity and reached as outliers, the goal. The Belgians don’t get with his solo ride but only the victory of the day.

The Belgian professional cyclist Greg Van Avermaet has the fifth stage of the 103. Tour de France won. The 31-Year-old from Team BMC Racing triumphed in the mountainous part piece about 216 kilometers from Limoges in the ski resort of Le Lioran in the massif Central after a alone travel. Behind Van Avermaet his compatriot Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) came with 2:34 minutes behind on rank two. The Yellow Jersey of the overall leader of the Slovak Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) lost to Van Avermaet. German cyclists played a day after the sprint success of Marcel Kittel not matter.

For Van Avermaet, it was the second Tour stage win of his career. In 2015 he was 13. Part decided to Rodez. The classics specialist was initially part of a nine-man breakaway group with the Poland Bartosz Huzarski from the German Bora-team, in the final stage, at the Col du Perthus, but his last companion De Gendt. De Gendt missed the stage victory, but was not allowed to take over the mountain Jersey by two points over Van Avermaet.

The favorites for overall victory, the British defending champion Chris Froome (Sky) and Challenger Nairo Quintana from Colombia (Movistar) was the stage of the first climbing test before it is on Friday in the Pyrenees. Only the Spanish Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) had problems and lost valuable seconds. On Thursday, the German Sprinter to Kittel and André Greipel in the sixth section of Arpajon-sur-Cère to Montauban (190,5 km) have yet a further opportunity to secure a victory.

asz/og (dpa, sid)