Athens News - 'Unbelievable' Kooij wins Tour de France 5th stage in chaotic sprint finish

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 in the crash.

"I had to wait until this day to get this first chance to sprint in the Tour and to win it is unbelievable," said Kooij.

With the sprinters primed for action on this flat fifth stage billed as a likely bunch finish, there was understandably some extra tension in the peloton in the run-in.

Several riders went down in the spill with just over 5km to ride, with Dutchman Alex Molenaar seemingly the worst affected.

However, dozens of riders were slowed up by the crash and found themselves desperately trying to chase down a reduced peloton charging towards the finish line at Pau in the southwest.

Sprinters such as 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 able to tee up their fast men as they would have wanted to.

Co-captain of the Decathlon team alongside Paul Seixas, Kooij emerged from the chaos with an irresistible surge to the line to accomplish his pre-tour aim to "win at least one sprint stage".

"It was quite an easy day until the final, so then you know it will be hectic in this first sprint of the Tour," said Kooij.

"Everyone is still really eager and I just managed to find my way.

"I did it on my own in the end and I found the right wheel and I just wanted to have a chance to sprint today.

"When I saw the line I just went as hard as I could."

The Dutchman had never ridden at the Tour before as his previous team, Visma-Lease a Bike, did not 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 new team Decathlon CMA CGM as he battled a long illness at the beginning of the year.

- Lone breakaway -

Traeen managed to finish in a group 14 seconds behind the winner, alongside reigning champion Tadej Pogacar and other overall contenders such as 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 ensure their team leader, who is a two-time Tour winner, did not lose any vital seconds to his main 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 was on the ground," said Traeen about his crash.

"I went to a corner and then I was there (on the ground), and then 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 fairly 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, no one else joined him.

It meant that the Frenchman spent 144 kilometres out alone at the front of the race before the sprinters' teams reeled him in with 14km left to ride.

After that it was over to the sprinters' teams, but they were unable to control the run-in.

R.Papakonstantinou--AN-GR