Tour de France: Jai Hindley seals stage 5 victory as Jonas Vingegaard takes time on rivals

Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) won stage 5 of the Tour de France after being part of the day’s early breakaway and attacking to go solo over the final climb and take victory in Laruns.

The former Giro d’Italia winner finished 33 seconds ahead of a chasing group that included defending champion Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), who had attacked and dropped his GC rivals on the final climb. It was enough of a margin for Hindley to go into the yellow jersey, a boost to the Australian’s overall hopes.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) finished in the third group, 54 seconds down on Vingegaard, already putting a significant gap between the two favourites after only five stages.

After a long fight, a 36-man breakaway got away on the opening flat section of the stage, including Hindley, who would prove to be the strongest after a whittling down process over the Col du Soudet and Col d’Ichère.

On the final climb, the Col de Marie Blanque, the GC riders finally engaged and Jumbo-Visma set it up for Vingegaard to attack and distance almost all of his competitors. After all of UAE Team Emirates’ work controlling the stage, they had little to respond to the Dane, who quickly went a minute clear of Pogačar, and the gap never came back down.

“I was sort of just improvising out there and enjoying some bike racing, and I managed to find myself in that group,” Hindley said at the finish. “I enjoyed it out there today. It’s really incredible. I have no words, really I have no words.”

“The guys on the radio were screaming about riding to the line. I couldn’t really hear so much what was happening, but I just wanted to gain as much time as possible and also the stage win. And I found myself in the yellow jersey, so that’s pretty cool too.”

Racing recap

As expected, it was a ferocious battle for the breakaway on a stage where a strong break could easily make it to the finish and contest the win. Heading out of Pau and south towards the Pyrenees, the pace was high for a long time as a rotating cast of riders tried to get away. Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) spent a long time pushing on solo, but the continuing fight behind put an end to his hopes.

Eventually, after around 35km of racing, a big group finally managed to snap the elastic and get up the road. Thirty-six riders were able to go with the move that stuck, including Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe). Initially, the presence of Giro d’Italia winner and podium hopeful Hindley looked like it might quash the break’s chances, but the efforts of Hindley’s two Bora teammates and Jumbo-Visma meant that the leaders were able to pull out a two-minute lead over the peloton, where UAE Team Emirates were controlling things.

Ahead of the intermediate sprint, Van Aert, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Victor Campanaerts (Lotto Dstny) and Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) set off up the road in pursuit of green jersey points, with the Frenchman taking maximum ahead of Pedersen. Coquard then dropped back, but the other three pushed on in front of the rest of the breakaway.

Hitting the base of the 15km Col du Soudet, Van Aert and Campanaerts soon let go of Pedersen, who went right back to the peloton, and the Belgian duo spent most of the climb up ahead, with what remained of the chasers closing in. They were eventually reeled back in 2.5km from the top, which then spurred on a flurry of attacks from the break. Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën) had a 10-second gap over the top of the climb, but Bora were chasing the Austrian hard and had brought him back by the time the road flattened out again.

The next rider to try an attack was Krists Neilands (Israel-Premier Tech) who went solo ahead of the Col d’Ichère, before Van Aert and Alaphilippe bridged across to him on the climb, leading the Hindley group by 15 seconds. With 30km to go, the leaders were still 3:30 ahead of the UAE-lead peloton, and the chances of the winner coming from the breakaway appeared high. In the first few kilometres of the 7.5km Col de Marie Blanque, the chasers, led by Dani Martínez (Ineos Grenadiers) made the catch and rejoined the three leaders.

The steeper slopes of the Marie Blanque saw almost half the group shelled out the back, as AG2R Citroën and Bora-Hansgrohe set the pace. Four kilometres from the top, Gall and Hindley went clear, whilst in the yellow jersey group a high pace from Jumbo-Visma started to put riders into difficulty, drawing out an elite group of fewer than 10 riders. Towards the top, Hindley dropped Gall, going solo in pursuit of not only a stage win but also the yellow jersey.

Behind, Jonas Vingegaard launched a stinging attack from the favourites, distancing Pogačar with a big acceleration and taking more than a minute back from Hindley by the top of the climb. With only a descent and flat run-in before the finish, there was little time for anyone dropped to pull back time. It was solo effort vs solo effort as both Hindley and Vingegaard went as hard as possible to the line, with the Australian eventually finishing 34 seconds ahead of the Dane to win the stage.

Hindley also held on to enough of a gap to go into the yellow jersey, sitting 47 seconds ahead of Vingegaard in the general classification. Giulio Ciccone moved up to third overall at the end of the day, whilst Pogačar dropped down to sixth, 1:40 adrift of the lead.