Tour de France debutant Olav Kooij (Decathlon-CMA CGM) won stage 5 on Wednesday in the first true bunch kick of this year's race.
The 24-year-old Dutchman navigated a hectic finale – where some of the big leadout trains were disrupted by a late crash – to arrive on the finishing straight in a strong position. When he launched his sprint in Pau, nobody came especially close to catching him. Max Kanter (XDS-Astana) took second on the day with Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quick Step) in third.
Although there were splits in the peloton behind the sprinters contesting the win, Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) finished safely in the bunch to retain his overall lead, with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) finishing on the same time.
[race_result id=17 stage_id=89780 count=5 gc=0 year=2026]
[race_result id=17 stage_id=89780 count=5 gc=5 year=2026]
How it happened
- Stage 5 was a clear opportunity for the pure sprinters, tempering interest in joining the day's breakaway. When Lotto-Intermarché's Baptiste Veistroffer fired off the front shortly after the peloton rolled out from Lannemezan under hot – albeit not quite as hot as it has been the past two days – conditions, nobody went with him. That was that for the breakaway, a single rider who would then spend several hours off the front in a hopeless move.
- The peloton allowed Veistroffer to get about three minutes up the road but there was never any real doubt that he would ultimately be brought back. Soudal-Quick Step and Alpecin-Premier Tech, riding for Merlier and Jasper Philipsen, respectively, did much of the chasing work.
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