Netherland’s Olav Kooij celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the fifth stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Lannemezan and finish in Pau, France, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
PAU, France–Dutch debutant Olav Kooij won the fifth stage of the Tour de France on Wednesday in a chaotic sprint finish sparked by a crash five kilometers from the road which scuppered several teams’ hopes.
The 24-year-old beat German Max Kanter into second with Belgian Tim Merlier coming home in third as Norway’s Torstein Traeen kept the race leader’s yellow jersey despite being brought down within the crash.
“I had to attend until this present day to get this primary likelihood to sprint within the Tour and to win it’s unbelievable,” said Kooij.
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With the sprinters primed for motion on this flat fifth stage billed as a possible bunch finish, there was understandably some extra tension within the peloton within the run-in.
Several riders went down within the spill with just over 5km to ride, with Dutchman Alex Molenaar seemingly the worst affected.
Nevertheless, dozens of riders were slowed up by the crash and located themselves desperately attempting to chase down a reduced peloton charging towards the finish line at Pau on one other sweltering day within the southwest of France.
Sprinters corresponding to Jasper Philipsen lost key lead-out team-mates like Mathieu van der Poel and it led to a disorganised run to the finish line with no teams in a position to tee up their fast men as they might have desired to.
Co-captain of the Decathlon team alongside Paul Seixas, Kooij emerged from the chaos with an irresistible surge to the road to perform his pre-tour aim to “win no less than one sprint stage”.
“It was quite a simple day until the ultimate, so then you realize it is going to be hectic in this primary sprint of the Tour,” said Kooij. “Everyone continues to be really eager and I just managed to search out my way.
“I did it alone in the long run and I discovered the appropriate wheel and I just desired to have a likelihood to sprint today. After I saw the road I just went as hard as I could.”
The Dutchman had never ridden on the Tour before as his previous team, Visma-Lease a Bike, didn’t bring a sprinter to the race as they concentrated solely on their overall contender Jonas Vingegaard.
And he got off to a poor start with recent team Decathlon CMA CGM as he battled a protracted illness firstly of the yr.
Lone breakaway
Denmark’s Mads Pedersen wearing the most effective sprinter’s green jersey celebrates on the rostrum after the fifth stage of the Tour de France cycling race with start in Lannemezan and finish in Pau, France, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)
Traeen managed to complete in a bunch 14 seconds behind the winner, alongside reigning champion Tadej Pogacar and other overall contenders corresponding to Vingegaard, Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel and French teenage sensation Seixas.
He was helped by Dane Vingegaard’s Visma team motoring on after the crash to try to make sure their team leader, who’s a two-time Tour winner, didn’t lose any vital seconds to his predominant rivals.
The Norwegian still leads the Tour by 28sec from American Sean Quinn, with Czech Mathias Vacek third at 3min 50sec.
“To be honest, I don’t know that much, suddenly I used to be on the bottom,” said Traeen about his crash.
“I went to a corner after which I used to be there (on the bottom), after which luckily I had the Visma train coming past and brought us back to the group.”
He said he had “a small wound on my knee but nothing really serious”.
It was a reasonably typical sprint stage until the finale, with a doomed breakaway easily chased down before the business end.
Baptiste Veistroffer said before the stage began that he was determined to get away in a break and sure enough, he was true to his word.
From the chequered flag, he shot off down the road, but perhaps to his surprise, nobody else joined him.
It meant that the Frenchman spent 144 kilometres out alone on the front of the race before the sprinters’ teams reeled him in with 14km left to ride.
“I enjoyed it an enormous amount, I used to be smiling the entire day,” said Veistroffer.
“The encouragement, the fans on the Tour are something that you just really need to honour.”
After that it was over to the sprinters’ teams, but they were unable to manage the run-in.