Australian cycling veteran Simon Clarke has earned a magnificent, last-ditch Tour de France triumph to crown 20 years of slog on Europe’s roads after a brutal, crash-strewn cobbled stage.
But while the 35-year-old Israel-Premier Tech rider was left in floods of joyous tears after edging a lung-bursting sprint to win the fifth stage in a photo finish on Wednesday, it proved a calamitous day for Australia’s biggest hitters on the Tour.
