Tour thrills and spills

A THRILLING sprint finish win for Estonian Jaan Kirsipuu and a catastrophic crash in the peloton were the features of stage five of the Tour de France yesterday.

Kirsipuu and four other riders broke away from the peloton just after the halfway mark in the 195km stage from Soisson to Rouen and were never caught. The finish, featuring a fast descent into the historic town of Rouen, seemed likely to feature all five but eventually boiled down to a 30-somethings battle between Kirsipuu, 32, from the Ag2r Prevoyance team, CSC-Tiscali’s 34-year-old Dane Michael Sandstodt, and 38-year-old Belgian Ludo Dierckxsens, from Lampre. The sprinting power of the younger Estonian, who has only recently returned from a serious knee injury, proved just enough to edge out Sandstodt into second place, although veteran Dierckxsens - not known as a sprinter - did try to sneak past both for an unexpected win before fading and finishing third.

Kirsipuu admitted winning his third ever Tour stage had taken a lot out of him. He said: ‘‘For the rest of the tour I will try to recover from the effort today, but I think the rest of the team is much more free in their mind to make moves like they did today.’’

While the experienced trio fought out the top three placings, the news was not so good back in the peloton for Marco Pinotti, who was the most serious casualty in a crash 18km from the finish. The Italian, a Lampre team-mate of Dierckxsens, was reported to have been flown to hospital in Rouen with serious facial injuries.

Television pictures showed the 26-year-old sprawled motionless on the road with medical staff treating him and he became the second retirement of the race after Belgian Tom Steels from the Mapei-Quick Step team dropped out 92km into today’s stage.

Italian Stefano Casagranda and Frenchman Christophe Edalaine came home fourth and fifth respectively and the bunch was led home by the Australian triumvirate of Robbie McEwen, Stuart O’Grady, Baden Cooke. Erik Zabel and could only manage ninth, but keeps the green jersey for the top sprinter. The yellow jersey stays with Spaniard Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano of the ONCE team, who came home with the bunch in 28th.