BELLEGARDE-SUR-VALSERINE, FRANCE — There was no intricate celebration from Peter Sagan this time, just a primal scream and a flex of the arms as he crossed the finish line a winner for the third time in this Tour de France.
In his wake were Andre Greipel and other dejected sprinters, who fell short of victory on the overcast, crash-filled stage six, a 207-kilometer, or 129-mile, ride that saw yellow-jersey hopes fade for a number of contenders, including Ryder Hesjedal and Frank Schleck. For Sagan, a 22-year-old Slovakian riding with Liquigas-Cannondale, it is another chapter in what has been a dream Tour debut. Last Sunday, the green jersey leader won the race’s first stage, then snagged another victory on Wednesday’s stage three. Although a crash forced him out of yesterday’s sprint finish in Rouen, won by Greipel, a rider for Lotto-Belisol, Sagan put himself in excellent position again on Friday in Metz, sneaking onto the back of Greipel’s lead-out train before rushing past the German to the line. “I didn’t think at the start I could win today,” Sagan told French television. “I was on Greipel’s wheel and I started and then I knew I could win it.” Matt Goss of Orica-GreenEDGE finished third. Mark Cavendish of Team Sky, the British sprinter who won stage two, was caught in a crash 15.5 miles from the line and did not contest the finale. The sprint stakes were higher on Friday than they have been all week. The stage, which started in the Champagne center of Épernay and meandered east through the Marne, past World War I battle monuments, before arriving in Metz, was the sprinters’ last opportunity for glory until next Saturday, when the race heads to the Mediterranean coast. Sagan is not a pure sprinter; his win at last year’s Tour of Poland and in other stage races have shown he can excel in the mountains, which begin Saturday. He was asked on Friday how many stages he could win. “I don’t know, maybe more,” he said. “I’m not going to stop with three.” Saturday’s stage, which concludes with a steep uphill climb to La Planche des Belles Filles — a ski area in the Vosges mountain range — was supposed to bring the first selection in the race for the yellow jersey. But a major accident, one of three crashes in the stage, shook up the overall standings. About 24 kilometers from the finish, nearly half of the main bunch was slowed by a spill on a narrow two-lane road outside of Metz. “It was shaky and there wasn’t enough space for everyone,” said Thomas Voeckler of Team Europcar, who finished over 14 minutes behind race leader Fabian Cancellara. “It was a big, big crash.” Of the contenders for the Tour title, Ryder Hesjedal of Garmin-Sharp suffered the most. The Canadian, who won the Giro d’Italia in May, had a bloody gash on his left thigh and finished 13 minutes and 38 seconds behind Cancellara. Frank Schleck, the presumed leader of Radioshack-Nissan-Trek, finished two minutes and 43 seconds back. After the stage, Schleck told French television that he would be going to the hospital for an examination. Schleck, who finished third in last year’s Tour, abandon the 2010 edition after breaking his collarbone on stage three. The other main contenders, Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky, Cadel Evans of Team BMC Racing, the Tour’s defending champion, and Vincenzo Nibali of Liquigas-Cannondale, were at the front of the peloton when the crash occurred and did not lose any time. Wiggins remains the best-placed of the group, seven seconds shy of Cancellara. The race last visited Metz in 1999, when Lance Armstrong took the yellow jersey. He remained in the lead through Paris, capturing the first of his seven Tour de France victories. Last week, the United States Anti-Doping Agency charged the Texan, who retired from cycling last year, with taking performance enhancing drugs and, along with four associates, running a doping conspiracy during his career. The New York Times reported that a handful of Armstrong’s former teammates, including four riders currently competing in the Tour, will provide testimony in the case. The American David Zabriskie is one of the named riders. The Garmin-Sharp rider did not allow the media scrutiny to affect his performance Friday, launching a four-man breakaway in the first 10 kilometers of the stage. The other breakaway riders succumbed, but Zabriskie stayed clear until the final kilometer, when the fast-moving bunch overtook him. “If the race had been one kilometer shorter,” he lamented to French television. “That’s how it happens sometimes.” Zabriskie was a bright spot for Garmin-Sharp on Friday. The same crash that took down Hesjedal also affected Tom Danielson. Danielson abandoned the race after the spill on Friday. “In cycling, a good team isn’t defined by how perfect it is in winning moments, but instead how it moves forward when all is [expletive],” Jonathan Vaughters, the team manager, wrote on Twitter after the stage. “Onward.” Danielson was among three riders to abandon the race on Friday; on Thursday, Marcel Kittel of Team Argos-Shimano pulled out because of gastroenteritis. Had he been healthy this weekend, however, Kittel, a sprinter, would have still suffered. Saturday and Sunday’s stages will be for the climbers — and a chance for overall contenders like Evans and Wiggins to test each others’ fitness. “The first climb of the Tour is always a surprise,” Evans said. “It’s the real first indicator of the overall picture.”This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 7, 2012
A previous version of this article online misstated Peter Sagan’s nationality. Mr. Sagan is Slovakian, not Czech.
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