German team triumphs in Pyrenees: Captain Hindley now riding in yellow

Surprise victory for German team Bora-hansgrohe in the Tour de France; thanks to a good lead-out by German champion Emanuel Buchmann, team captain Jai Hindley took the yellow jersey in the Pyrenees.

The German team Bora-hansgrohe put an exclamation mark on the fifth stage of the Tour de France and caused a changing of the guard.

Well prepared by German champion Emanuel Buchmann, his Australian team-mate Jai Hindley raced to the stage win after 162 kilometres between Pau and Laruns, the first Pyrenean stage.

Former Giro d’Italia winner Hindley also took the leader’s yellow jersey. Hindley now has a 47-second lead over defending champion Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark. Previous leader Adam Yates dropped to fifth place.

Team-mate Buchmann managed to jump into fourth place, while co-favourite Tadej Pogacar is already 1 minute and 40 seconds behind Hindley. On the last climb of the day, Vingegaard literally left his rivals standing and rode away from the Slovenian.

Memories of the 2022 Tour came to mind, when the Slovenian was also unable to stand up to Vingegaard on the long climbs. But he said defiantly: “It’s not over yet”.

Surprise winner Hindley is the first Australian in the yellow jersey since Rohan Dennis in 2015, and for Bora-hansgrohe his success ended a long drought. The last rider to wear the yellow jersey for the German team was former world champion Peter Sagan for one day in 2018.