As Gogl’s team Alpecin-Deceuninck announced via Twitter, the Upper Austrian would be operated on in the Herentals hospital in Belgium. Gogl had an unfortunate fall. The Swiss Daniel Oss driving in front of him collided with a careless spectator, the Austrian racing behind him might no longer avoid it and flew over his colleague.
Despite numerous falls on the dusty cobblestones, Australia’s Simon Clarke gave Team Israel-Premier their first Tour stage win. Van Aert, who finished the 157 km from Lille to Arenberg in 16th place directly behind Patrick Konrad, remains the overall leader. The Belgian also benefited from the fact that the American Neilson Powless ran out of breath in the finish in the fight for the day’s victory.
Powless runs out of air in the finish
Powless, the first professional with Indian roots in the field of the Tour de France, was only overtaken by his escape companions shortly before the end of the 157 km with a total of eleven cobblestone sectors and ended up fourth. The day’s victory was secured in a photo finish by Australian Clarke ahead of Dutchman Taco van der Hoorn, Edvald Boasson Hagen was third ahead of Powless.
Tour de France: Clarke wins the day
Belgian Wout van Aert successfully defended his leader’s jersey on the turbulent fifth stage of the Tour de France. Surprisingly, the Australian Simon Clarke took the day’s victory.
Van Aert finished at the same time as Konrad and retained the yellow jersey, 13 seconds ahead of new second Powless and 14 seconds ahead of Boasson Hagen. New fourth is defending champion Tadej Pogacar, who edged himself within 19 seconds of the overall leader in seventh place on the day’s 19.4km cobblestone stretch.
Pogacar shines, black day for Roglic
But not only the Slovenian favorite for the overall victory, also the best Austrian Konrad made up a lot of ground on the fifth stage to the top. The Lower Austrian also improved to 15th place in the overall standings and is now 1:04 minutes behind the man in yellow.
In the mini edition of Paris-Roubaix, Pogacar was the big winner alongside day winner Clarke. With the classics specialist Jasper Stuyven, the Slovenian chased the leading group and even drove in the virtual yellow jersey for a short time. In the final, however, the dominator also seemed to be running out of strength. He was concentrating on getting time on his ranking competitors.
“It was a really good day, I felt really strong. That gives me a great motivation boost. The cobblestone sectors were really hard. It might have looked easy, but it wasn’t at all,” said Pogacar, 23, who is chasing his third straight Tour win.
Pogacar’s compatriot Primoz Roglic and last year’s second Jonas Vingegaard from Denmark were thrown back by defects. Even more: Roglic injured his shoulder in a fall and lost regarding two minutes at the end. Vingegaard also lost a lot of time following having to wait a long time for a suitable spare wheel following a defect.
