Coming the day after the queen stage, stage five probably came as somewhat of a relief for riders, as they had a somewhat easier day in what turned out, rather predictably, to be a sprinter's stage. That is not to say the day wasn't without some drama, as a number of GC contenders lost a few seconds coming into the finish, as the bunch split due to the presence of a number of roundabouts which riders had to manoeuvre around. Dan Martin managed to keep out of trouble at the front, though, and even picked up a one second time bonus during an intermediate sprint. However, Rodriguez lost three seconds, whilst Quintana and Wiggins both lost nine seconds. Thus, Martin now leads Rodriguez by 14 seconds, Qunitana by 42 seconds and Wiggins by 46 seconds.
In terms of the stage itself, Olivier Kaisen and Tristan Valentin got into a breakaway early on in the race, but the sprinters' teams were not going to miss the opportunity for a stage win and so Omega Pharma-Quick Step worked hard at the front, setting the pace to bring the two riders back, which they did with 15 km left to go. There were a couple of attempts by lone riders to attempt victory or at least get some TV coverage, including Andrey Kashechkin and then Marcus Burghardt. However, neither the Argos-Shimano or Cannondale teams were going to let that happen and so it was left for the sprinters to contest the finish. In the end, it was François Parisien in his first season for Argos-Shimano who took victory ahead of Samuel Dumoulin and Stéphane Poulhie.
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