Andreas Klöden won the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2011 today in a sprint in Vernoux-en-Vivarais and also took the yellow leader's jersey of the general classification. As foreseen, the Col de la Mûre was decisive in today's stage since it allowed to create a leading group which continued straight to the finish and which battled for the stage win in a sprint on the finish line.

The summary of the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2011

At the start in Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise, all 168 riders signed in for a hilly stage over 193 kilometers.

While several riders attacked and tried to get away from the peloton early in the stage, the last Belgian rider of the Quick Step team, Kevin de Weert, decided to leave the race to the sun. The rider who fell in the second stage thus left his 5 team mates the honor to go find the sun in Nice (well, it might actually be raining!).


Rémi Pauriol (FDJ), who was already wearing the polka dot jersey, went to get some extra points on the first climb, the Côte des Ayats while Heinrich Haussler (Team Garmin-Cervélo) did the same in the first intermediate sprint in Saint-Chamond, the souvenir for Andreï Kivilev who came to fall there during Paris-Nice in 2003 and who died of his injuries later on. His compatriot Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) took the 3rd place there today.

In the climb of the Col de la Croix de Chaubouret, today's breakaway finally got formed, after an attack from Sergio Paulinho (Team Radioshack) who gets company from Jean-Christophe Péraud (AG2R La Mondiale), David Lopez Garcia (Movistar Team), Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team), Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) and Gorka Verdugo (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and later on also Roman Kreuziger (Astana) and Chris Sörensen (Saxo Bank-Sungard). In this group of 8 riders, Lieuwe Westra decided to attack again while the group falls apart in the climb. The Dutch rider finally arrives on top first, 35 seconds ahead of Hubert Dupont (AG2R La Mondiale) and Arnold Jeannesson (FDJ) and 1 minute ahead of Christophe Le Mevel (Team Garmin-Cervélo), Alexandre Vinokourov and Gorka Verdugo.
Thomas De Gendt's team mate than stays ahead alone for several kilometers but finally got joined by Christophe Le Mevel, Hubert Dupont, David Lopez Garcia, Arnold Jeannesson and Romain Hardy (Bretagne-Schuller) and the gap of these 6 riders on the peloton quickly goes up to over 4 minutes.

The FDJ team lost two of its riders in this stage: Yoann Offredo who was hurt when he fell the day before yesterday and Arthur Vichot who fell in the descent of the Col de Comberon today and who broke his collarbone.

In the different climbs, Lieuwe Westra manages to get rid of the other riders of the breakaway: first he's alone ahead together with Dupont and Lopez Garcia and finally he also gets rid of Lopez Garcia followed by Dupont. When Hubert Dupont gets back on him, the two riders realise that they won't stay ahead for a long time anymore and at 37 kilometers from the finish, the peloton thus gets back on them.

In the descent where Arthur Vichot falls and has to leave Paris-Nice 2011, his team mates define the pace, especially with Pierrick Fédrigo, Sandy Casar, Cédric Pineau and Jérémy Roy. These 4 riders of the FDJ team are in a breakaway with Yury Trofimov (Katusha Team), Thomas Voeckler (Team Europcar) and Simon Spilak (Lampre-ISD). They stay ahead until the foot of the last climb of the day, the Col de la Mûre.

In this last climb, several riders attack, for example Robert Kiserlovski (Astana) and Matteo Carrara (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) who get company from Rein Taaramae (Cofidis) and Xavier Tondo (Movistar Team). Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad), Janez Brajkovic and Andreas Klöden (Team Radioshack) and Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) also join them close to the top and these 8 riders are thus the first to start the descent.
In the descente they are not taken back and in this group, the German rider Andreas Klöden turns out to be the quickest and he thus wins the stage, ahead of Samuel Sanchez and Matteo Carrara.

The classifications

The classification of the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2011

The top 5 of this stage is as follows:

1/ Andreas Klöden (Team Radioshack) - 4h59'00"
2/ Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi)
3/ Matteo Carrara (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team)
4/ Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad)
5/ Rein Taaramae (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne)

The general classification

Andreas Klöden also takes the lead in the general classification and will thus wear the yellow jersey in tomorrow's time trial close to Aix-en-Provence.

Today's stage has been quite decisive for the general classification in which Thomas De Gendt falls back to the 63rd place at 15'09", but the 27 kilometer long time trial will probably really fix the result of this 69th edition of Paris-Nice. The German rider Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad) is still the big favorite, especially because he already managed to get up to the 4th position in the general classification before this time trial.

1/ Andreas Klöden (Team Radioshack) - 24h26'13"
2/ Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) - +0'04"
3/ Matteo Carrara (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - +0'06"
4/ Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad) - +0'10"
5/ Robert Kiserlovski (Astana)

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice 2011 | Paris-Nice

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