Andre Greipel is making a habit of winning at the Tour de France.
After claiming his first stage victory at last year’s race and opening his 2012 account on stage four, the Lotto-Belisol sprint king made it back-to-back wins on stage five.
Greipel was held up by a crash with approximately three kilometres to go but the German refused to panic, linking up with leadout man Greg Henderson before outsprinting Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEDGE) and JJ Haedo (SaxoBank-Tinkoff) to victory.
Here’s a selection of images from UCI WorldTour photographer, Stefano Sirotti, from the 196.5km stage from Rouen to St Quentin.
Race leader Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Nissan-Trek) limbers up before the stage. Like the look of Cancellara’s yellow Trek Domane? We’ve got more photographs here
Team Sky’s Bradley Wiggins signs in. The Brit trails Cancellara by seven seconds in the general classification
Four riders formed the day’s break and stayed away until the final 300m, with Greipel going on to emerge victorious on the uphill finish
Cancellara rolled across the line in the peloton to defend his overall lead
Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) was among the riders caught up in a crash in the final few kilometres and saw his green jersey lead cut to 18 points from Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEDGE)
