Australian Jai Hindley crossed the line alone to win stage five of the Tour de France on Wednesday to take the overall leader’s yellow jersey as defending champion Jonas Vingegaard won a tactical battle with key rival Tadej Pogacar.
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Hindley leads Vingegaard with the Dane pulling off a major coup on the final mountain and now has a 53-second advantage on Pogacar in the overall standings, which took a major shake up.
Bora-Hansgrohe rider Hindley, the 2022 Giro d’Italia winner, shook off his rivals on the Col de Marie-Blanc to break clear in the yellow jersey standings.
The 27-year-old finished 32 seconds ahead of Italy’s Giulio Ciccone and Austrian Felix Gall with Vingegaard fifth at 34sec.
Ciccone climbed to third in the overall with his second place.
“I’m here for the overall win and the aim was to put as much time as possible into the others,” said Hindley.
“It has been a dream since I was six years old but I never thought I’d find myself in the yellow jersey,” he said.
“It was chaotic behind with different teams riding with various aims. I got the in and the lead so I’m delighted, it’s going to be a crazy bike race.”
Jumbo tactical lesson
Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma stunned the UAE Team when Wout Van Aert dropped back from an early break and led Vingegaard uphill with an impressive 500m pull.
Jumbo climber Sepp Kuss then took the relay until he too peeled away before Vingegaard broke free and put the hammer down over the remaining 15km to the finish line.
“It was a really hard day,” admitted Van Aert, one of the stars of the peloton with three stage wins on the 2022 Tour.
“This puts pressure on them (Team UAE),” he said. “Hindley and Ciccone got away from us, but I was holding back to help Jonas,” he explained.
Meanwhile UAE Team rider Pogacar, the 2020 and 2021 champion, was left isolated as overnight leader Adam Yates appeared unable to help in the chase.
“It’s not lost yet,” said Pogacar, who broke a wrist in April and missed some key training time in the saddle.
“He (Vingegaard) was much faster on that climb. He was really strong and there was just nothing you can do,” he said.
“It’s a blow but its only the first mountain stage, we shall keep fighting and try to win back time.
The AG2R rider Felix Gall took the king of the mountains polka dot jersey after coming third behind Hindley.
On Thursday, trademark Tour climbs Col d’Aspin and Col du Tourmalet will mark out stage six as the toughest test so far with further tremors expected on the second mountain day over 145km from Tarbes to Cauterets-Cambasque.
But those two ascents make only 30km and are only part of the story with a 16km slog to a summit finish coming after an epic decent from the 2150 metres altitude Tourmalet.
(AFP)
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