Wout Van Aert risked his yellow leader’s jersey on Stage 5 of the Tour de France on Wednesday to help one of Jumbo Visma’s two leaders, Jonas Vingegaard, stay in the mix. Van Aert himself crashed early in the race, which had 11 cobbled sectors along the 157-kilometer route, but he rallied and mitigated some of his team’s bad luck.
Vingegaard had a mechanical issue with his bike and had to switch with one of his teammates, costing him time.
Primoz Roglic, however, crashed hard. He finished the stage but dropped 37 places in the general classification race. He is now 2:36 back after finishing 61st on the stage.
With both leaders running into trouble, Jumbo Visma split its team to help them both.
Van Aert dropped back and helped pull Vingegaard and the peloton, and he managed to hold on to the yellow jersey for another day, finishing 1:04 behind the stage winner, Simon Clarke of Israel Premier Tech, in 16th place. Vingegaard crossed 17th and slid just one spot in the GC race to seventh, 40 seconds behind Van Aert.
Sepp Kuss finished 91st on the stage (+4:12) for Jumbo Visma.
Quinn Simmons finished 129th (+9:24) for Trek Segafredo, but Mads Pederson stayed near the GC lead, dropping just two spots to sixth (+0:36) with a 37th-place peloton finish on the stage.
Neilson Powless of EF Education Easy Post is now second in the GC (+0:19), Edvald Boasson Hagen of TotalEnergies is third (+0:14), and Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates (+0:19) is fourth after the favorite placed seventh on Stage 5 (+0:51).
Van Aert maintained his points lead with 178. Fabio Jakobsen of Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl is second with 126.
Stage 6 on Thursday will be hilly and 220 kilometers long.
