Lotto's Andre Greipel won the fifth stage of the Tour De France and his second of this year's race this afternoon.
The race left Rouen on a relatively flat 196.5km stage to Saint-Quentin with all 195 riders taking part.
From the start, three riders attacked and were caught and then a group comprising of Mathieu Ladagnous (FDJ), Pablo Urtasun (EUS), Jan Ghyselinck (COF) and Julien Simon (SAU).quickly got away.
They were soon five minutes clear before Marcel Kittel was forced to abandon the race due to having a very dodgy stomach for the last few days.
The stage continued down the D1930 into the Department of Oise which was staging the feedstation at Viefvilliers and the intermediate sprint at Breuteil, a place where there was a good number of Brits.
Mathieu Ladagnous took the twenty points and just under the minutes later, the sprint from the peloton began. Mark Cavendish was the first man from the peloton and took eleven points.
The race continued past the Somme and fields which saw masses of lives lost in the World Wars.
With 20kms to go, the gap to the quartet out front had dropped to 1.16. Twenty five seconds had come off that gap as the escapers went under the ten kilometres to go banner.
Team Sky came up to the front as the teams concentrated on getting their sprinters to the front for the battle for the finish line on the boulevard Gambetta.
With 2.7kms to go, there was another big crash. Peter Sagan was one rider involved.
The quartet out front had 17 seconds with 2kms to go. Into the final kilometre, Jan Ghyselinck attacked. he was caught and in a sprint, Andrei Greipel took the win again in a time of 4.41.30, ahead of Goss and Haedo. Mark Cavendish, who was boxed in, was fifth.
Picture copyright - ASO
Greipel said to Eurosport: "This was a bit crazy, I was behind the crash but Greg Henderson was waiting for me and my team did the job for me."
Fabian Cancellera keeps his yellow jersey from Bradley Wiggins by seven seconds.
Stage six tomorrow is from Epernay to Metz and is 207.5km long. You can see the race live on both ITV4 and Eurosport.
Picture copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM