A breakaway which almost lasted till the finish: that's what happened for Thomas de Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) who was in the lead all day long, together with 4 others, and who was the last to be taken back in the last few hundreds meters before the finish in Rasteau in the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2015 today. That's how, like in 2006, the stage victory was decided in a bunch sprint and, almost out of the blue, Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida) won the sprint, beating Bryan Coquard (Team Europcar) on the finish line.

The summary of the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2015: Saint-Etienne > Rasteau

At 11.17AM 154 riders got away for the 5th stage between Saint-Etienne and Rasteau. Ramon Sinkeldam (Giant-Shimano, sick) and Adam Hansen (Lotto-Soudal, who crashed yesterday) didn't come to the start of this stage with an identical race route as in 2006 between those two cities, when the stage was won by Tom Boonen.

Right from the start we saw Bryan Nauleau (Team Europcar) attacking but he was rapidly taken back. Several attacks followed, always with Thomas de Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), the polka dot jersey, at the lead of the race, willing to defend his jersey at least on the first climb, the Col de la République which had its summit after only 12.5 kilometers in the race.

In this climb, a breakaway was formed by Romain Sicard (Team Europcar), Thomas de Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) and Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin). Egor Silin (Team Katusha) and Pawel Poljanski (Tinkoff-Saxo), chasing behind this leading trio, arrive 20 seconds behind them on top of this first au climb, behind Thomas de Gendt who takes the points for his favourite jersey in this race, ahead of Sicard and Talansky and 2'15" before the peloton. In the descent the leading trio awaits the chasing duo, they get together and the 5 riders then continue to extend their lead which is up to 3'25" at the intermediate sprint in Cornas where Romain Sicard takes the points ahead of Thomas de Gendt.

At the foot of the second climb, the Col du Devès (photo), the breakaway again extended this gap which is up to 3'35" at that time and on the top of the climb, Thomas de Gendt again takes the points, ahead of Talansky, when the peloton arrives on top 3'40" later.

From there, the gap starts to decrease and on top of the Côte de l'Aleyrac where Thomas de Gendt took some more points for "his" King of the Mountains classification it was down to 2'20".

Despite the fact that the gap then increases again initially, it goes back down again and reaches 1'40" when the leading riders leave Valréas (photo) and at 10 kilometers from the finish, they only have 35 seconds left when Romain Sicard can no longer follow the breakaway in the last small climb, the Côte de Buisson. Poljanski also gets dropped while Thomas de Gendt takes the final points for the King of the Mountains classification on top of this climb.

In the final part of the race, the breakaway loses other elements and the first rider who's no longer able to follow is Talansky, but in the last two kilometers it also comes to an end for Egor Silin. Under the red last kilometer sign, Thomas de Gendt only has 10 seconds left and the Belgian rider who secured his polka dot jersey all day long thus started to hope he would be able to stay ahead until the finish line. In the last few hundred meters he realises however that this is going to be very difficult alone against a whole peloton and he's thus taken back because he can taste the stage victory.

In the bunch sprint which follows, the victory seemed to be promised to Bryan Coquard (Team Europcar) but at the last moment Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida) came out of the blue to take the victory!

The photos of the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2015

All day long you've been able to discover the photos of this 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2015 between Saint-Etienne and Rasteau.

>> see all photos of the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2015 between Saint-Etienne and Rasteau

The classifications of Paris-Nice 2015 after the 5th stage

Here are the classifications up-to-date after this 5th stage:

Stage classification for the 5th stage

The top 5 of the final sprint of this 5th stage was as follows:

1/ Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida) - 4h12'09"
2/ Bryan Coquard (Team Europcar)
3/ Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE)
4/ Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis, solutions crédits)
5/ José Joaquin Rojas (Movistar Team)

General classification

There were no changes in the general classification:

1/ Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep) - 23h56'20"
2/ Richie Porte (Team Sky) - +0'01"
3/ Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) - +0'03"
4/ Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing Team) - +0'27"
5/ Jakob Fuglsang (Astana Pro Team) - +0'32"

In the best young riders classification, Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep) of course also keeps the lead, 53 seconds ahead of Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team) who will still wear the white jersey tomorrow, and 1'01" ahead of Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale).

King of the Mountains classification

In the King of the Mountains classification, Thomas de Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) secured his lead in this classification and thus his polka dot jersey. He's now 40 points ahead of his first competitor, Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team):

1/ Thomas de Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) - 61 points
2/ Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team) - 21 points
3/ Chris Anker Sørensen (Tinkoff-Saxo) - 21 points
4/ Andrew Talansky (Team Cannondale-Garmin) - 14 points
5/ Richie Porte (Team Sky) - 10 points

Points classification

Bling, Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE), keeps the lead in the points classification:

1/ Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE) - 38 points
2/ Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha) - 32 points
3/ Davide Cimolai (Lampre-Merida) - 27 points
4/ Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis, solutions crédits) - 27 points
5/ Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep) - 24 points

Tomorrow's stage: 6/ Vence > Nice - 184.5 km

Tomorrow, Saturday 14 March 2015, the last stage in line will be on the programme of Paris-Nice 2015 between Vence and Nice, over a distance of 184.5 kilometers.

The race route of this stage has been slightly modified between the kilometers 63 and 74 and has thus been made 4 kilometers longer. No changes however in the 6 difficulties which were planned in this stage: 3 first and 3 second category climbs. The map of this stage will be updated later tonight has been updated following this modification:

>> check out the detailed race route of the 6th stage of Paris-Nice 2015 between Vence and Nice on Google Maps

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice | Paris-Nice 2015

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