For this year's Tour de France we've teamed up with The Velocast to share with you their nominated Conquistador of the Day. During their daily stage review podcast, Scott and John will announce the rider who they feel deserves a special mention for their efforts that day.
Photo credit: BORA - hansgrohe/Bettini
Once again John Galloway of The Velocast is back to give us his thoughts on who deserved the award for Conquistador of the Day and why...
"I'm deeply, deeply conflicted about today. Thomas De Gendt gets mentioned for the simple reason that he was so persistent in trying to get that break away, but I was minded to disregard him because he was maybe a little too persistent. It got to the stage where you were thinking, that peloton is a brick wall Thomas - and you are just hitting your head against it mate. It became obvious that nothing was going to happen, but still, Thomas De Gendt tried to do Thomas De Gendt, so I disregarded him.
It would have been easy to choose Peter Sagan, the winner, because he was disappointed not to win the first stage to take the yellow jersey. He's clearly been motivated to take a stage for the team - the team that believed in him - and he delivered today and we saw how much that meant to him. So, I was tempted by that.
ASO / Alex BROADWAY
But I'm actually going to go for Marcus Burghardt. I would have picked the entire BORA - hansgrohe team because they worked so hard to put Sagan in place for that victory today. Very different from yesterday, it wasn't a focussed short leadout effort done to perfection. It was an entire day's work to keep a breakaway on a tight leash and to set their man up for a victory, and they did it to perfection.
The reason I chose Marcus Burghardt as the representative of that team is at one point a Deceuninck - Quick-Step rider rode up to Burghardt and said "Look, can you just ease off a bit - this is a bit fast!" and Burghardt more or less just turned around and told him to "get to F&@#!" Burghardt, as were the rest of the team, was entirely focussed on doing the job for Sagan and delivered perfectly, so I'm going for Marcus Burghardt today".
For more in-depth analysis of today's Tour de France stage head over to velocast.cc.
Photo credit: ASO / Pauline BALLET
STAGE SUMMARY FROM ASO
Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) claimed his 12th Tour de France stage win and mimicked The Incredible Hulk like on his first victory in 2012. In a sprint deprived of the pure sprinters after a few climbs in the Alsace region, the Slovakian beat Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott) in Colmar. Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) retained the yellow jersey.
Wellens, Clarke, Skujins and Würtz Schmidt at the front
176 riders started stage 5 in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. Strong attacks took place from the gun as many teams were motivated to make the breakaway. Benoît Cosnefroy (AG2R-La Mondiale), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) and Jan Tratnik (Bahrain-Merida) rode away at km 15 but were kept on a leash by the peloton and eventually caught five kilometres further. At km 22, Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal), Mads Würtz Schmidt (Katusha-Alpecin), Simon Clarke (EF Education First) and Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo) got the green light from the peloton.
They reached a maximum advantage of 2’30’’ at km 97. Wellens was mainly targeting the KOM points. The Belgian secured his polka dot jersey atop the Haut-Koenigsbourg with 66km to go.
Rui Costa tries his luck
In the côte des Trois-Epis, Würtz Schmidt was dropped and Skujins rode away solo 2km before the top with 37km remaining into the stage. Skujins was reeled in up the hill to Cinq Châteaux 22km before the end in Colmar. Sunweb was the most active team at the head of the peloton with a lot of work being done by Lennard Kämna. Affected by a mechanical, Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) chased for 25 minutes to make it back to the pack. Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) attacked on his own with 7km to go. He got a 12’’ gap and was reined in 2km before the finishing line. Another former world champion took over as Peter Sagan went to the front 300 metres before the line and didn’t give any chance to his rivals to pass. This is his eighth victory with the green jersey. He enters the top 15 of the stage wins tally of time at the Tour de France.
Conquistadors of the Day - Tour de France 2019
Stage 1 - Greg Van Avermaet (CCC Team)
Stage 2 - Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott)
Stage 3 - Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck - Quick-Step)
Stage 4 - Michael Mørkøv (Deceuninck - Quick-Step)
Stage 5 - Marcus Burghardt (BORA - hansgrohe)
For the daily podcast from Le Tour and more visit velocast.cc.
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