Tour de France stage 5 LIVE result: Tadej Pogacar takes time from rivals as Simon Clarke wins stage

Here they come towards the finish, it’s going to be a shootout...

5km to go: Magnus Cort is done! He slides off the front and now there are only four: the stage winner will be either Edvald Boasson Hagen (TotalEnergies), Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easypost), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) or Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech).

Stuyven and Pogacar are about 50 seconds behind the leaders, still working well together, while the yellow-jersey chasers led by Team Jumbo-Visma are about 1min 30sec back from Pogacar – they have worked well to reduce the damage a little for Vingegaard and Van Aert, but it is still a huge price to pay for a day of rough luck.

A reminder of the breakaway five who look to be set to fight it out for the stage win: Edvald Boasson Hagen (TotalEnergies), Magnus Cort and Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easypost), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech).

Cort has expended plenty of energy getting hold of the polka dot jersey over the first few days, so perhaps he will not contest a sprint finish among them. Boasson Hagen has the power to win a surge to the line and he might just be my pick. Taco van der Hoorn has looked very comfortable all day, too.

10km to go: The breakawayers have only one cobbled sector between them and the finish at Arenberg Port du Hainaut. Pogacar and Stuyven are still 40 seconds down on them and it seems like it will be between this quintet for the stage win. Vingegaard, Van Aert, Thomas and others are about 1min 45sec behind Pogacar, with Roglic even further back down the road after his crash.

In all the chaos I hadn’t had a chance to report that Dylan van Baarle, Ineos’s cobbles master who had been guiding Geraint Thomas through the day, has punctured and fallen back. Thomas remains in that yellow-jersey group a couple of minutes down on Pogacar.

15km to go: The breakaway five – Edvald Boasson Hagen (TotalEnergies), Magnus Cort and Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easypost), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) – remain out in front but their lead over Pogacar and Stuyven is still only 40 seconds. Surely the stage winner will be one of these seven riders.

Florian Vermeersch crashes now! He exited the cobbled sector giving chase to Pogacar and his front wheel just slid out from underneath him on a right-hand bend, perhaps some dust still on his tyres as he changed terrain. The Lotto-Soudal rider is back on his bike but it’s been a rough day for the Belgian team, who had Caleb Ewan crash earlier too.

17km to go: Pogacar attacks again! Jasper Stuyven surged from the GC group and the reigning champion has gone with him. Pogacar and Stuyven are making a concerted effort not just to distance from the rest of the GC pack but to join the breakaway group – the gap is down to around 40 seconds.

20km to go: The GC chasing pack are back on the cobbles once more. Pogacar must be loving it. He is completely alone with regards to his straggling UAE Emirates teammates but it doesn’t matter, and he surges on regardless with real speed at the front of the chasing pack hunting down the five-man breakaway.

He is trying to make it as difficult as possible for the Jumbo-Visma co-leaders Roglic and Vingegaard to regain contact, and they are set to lose at least a minute, maybe two, to their main rival.

Four more cobbled sectors to go.

Jumbo-Visma riders are almost comically stretched out all over this race, some slowing or even riding back down the road desperately trying to pick up their leaders and get them back to the main action. It’s like they’ve lost one another on a night out which has spiralled out of control. This is a real disaster for the Belgian powerhouse team.