Spaniard Oscar Freire of Rabobank won the fifth stage of the Tour de France, held over 225km between Beauvais and Caen yesterday.

 

Belgium's Tom Boonen, who finished second on the stage ahead of Spain's Inaki Isasi in third, retained the race leader's yellow jersey by 13 seconds from Australian Michael Rogers ahead of today's 189 km stage between Lisieux and Vitre.

 

With the real fight for the yellow jersey not set to begin until after Saturday's first big test the 52km time trial around Rennes this day focused on the points competition's green jersey.

 

Having come into the race declaring that stage wins would come ahead of his green jersey ambitions, Davitamon's Robbie McEwen finally showed he is ready to bid for what would be a hat-trick of green jerseys.

 

An early breakaway formed, which ultimately left two riders Frenchman Samuel Dumoulin and German Bjorn Schroder heading up towards the coast on their own.

 

They worked together to build the race's biggest margin so far which reached almost 13 minutes before the peloton decided to up the pace.

 

(China Daily July 7, 2006)