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Rob Ruijgh tends to his injured teammate Wouter Poels after today's crash. Laurent Cipriani/AP/Press Association Images
Tour de France

Sprint finish: everything you need to know about today’s stage of Le Tour

Peter Sagan continued his remarkable Tour debut on a stage transformed by a massive crash 26 kilometres from the finish.

Result: THREE IS THE magic number for Peter Sagan who pulled off another scintillating finish to take a crash-littered sixth stage ahead of sprint foes Andrei Greipel and Matt Goss. That’s three wins in six stages from the young Slovak superstar on his debut Tour.

Fabian Cancellara stays in the race leader’s yellow jersey, seven seconds ahead of Bradley Wiggins and Sylvain Chavanel.

Here’s how it happened: One of the last flat stages before the Tour starts to head up the mountains, today’s sixth stage from Epernay was dominated by a massive crash around 26 kilometres from the finish in Metz.

About 35 riders were brought down in the incident as the peloton hunted a four-man breakaway of David Zabriskie, Davide Malacarne, Karsten Kroon and Romain Zingle.

With a huge chunk of riders — including world champion Mark Cavendish and yellow jersey hopefuls Ryder Hesjedal, Frank Schleck, Thomas Voeckler and Michele Scarponi — either directly involved in or delayed by the crash, a much-reduced peloton of about 50 riders eventually reeled in the frontrunners with 2.5km remaining.

The sprint to the line was a familiar sight as green jersey hopefuls Matt Goss and Andrei Greipel went head to head before Sagan pulled out another thrilling dash to snatch the win on the line.

The big winner: Peter Sagan. The levels of hype surrounding the 22-year-old are going to reach stratospheric levels pretty soon if he keeps performing at this level. Himself, Greipel and Goss have already opened up a bit of a gap between themselves and the chasing pack in the race for the green jersey.

The big loser: Ryder Hesjedal. Coming off the back of his win at the Giro d’Italia, the Canadian was rightly thought to be one of the main players in the race for the yellow jersey. After losing 13:38 in today’s crash, he’ll need a miracle bigger than the Col du Tourmalet to have any sort of chance.

Who’s wearing what jersey?

  • Yellow (Overall): Fabian Cancellara
  • Green (Points): Peter Sagan
  • Polka-Dot (Mountains): Michael Morkov
  • White (Young Rider): Tejay van Garderen

What about the Irish? It was another day of relatively plain sailing for Nicolas Roche who escaped the trouble and rolled across the line in 20th place, four seconds behind Sagan to jump up to 15th place in the General Classification standings. Daniel Martin had one of those days that couldn’t end quickly enough. The crash cost him a huge wedge of time as he accompanied his Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda team-mate Hesjedal across the line 13:24 after the lead group.

So what happens tomorrow then? Stage seven takes us up and down a couple of tricky climbs along the 199 kilometres from Tomblaine to La Planche des Belles Filles — which roughly translates as “the bed of beautiful girls.”

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