After a combative and explosive first four days, the first sprint stage of the Tour de France finally unfolded on stage 5. We got a (slightly) surprising winner in Decathlon-CMA CGM's Olav Kooij. The Dutchman had an up-and-down (mostly down) spring due to illness but recently came around at the Baloise Belgium Tour. He's highly paid, and although this is his first Tour win he's not exactly an unknown (three Giro d'Italia stages among his 51 pro wins). Still, he bested several bigger names and more accomplished riders. Which leads to our questions of the day:
What happened to the big-name sprinters?
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quick Step) and stage 4 winner Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) all were mooted as top sprinters in the leadup to the Tour. But they came up short against Kooij on a chaotic day. That chaos partly explains why. As the results sheet shows, just 20 riders comprised the pack that contested the sprint. That small number is partly due to the crash with about 6 km to go, which split the field and ultimately left Merlier and Philipsen without their usual leadout trains.
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