Sprint king Mark Cavendish wins fifth stage of the Tour de France

MARK Cavendish finally announced himself as a contender for the green jersey with his 16th career stage win at the Tour de France.

110707 Mark Cavendish

MARK Cavendish finally announced himself as a contender for the green jersey with his 16th career stage win at the Tour de France.

Seemingly out of contention having lost contact with his key lead-out men Matt Goss and Mark Renshaw, the HTC-Highroad pocket rocket from the Isle of Man swept down the outside of the field to edge out Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma Lotto) and Jose Joaquin Rojas of Movistar in a time of 3hr 38min 32s.

Cavendish bided his time before coming off Team Sky's Geraint Thomas' wheel to power to the finish.

"It was a real hard finish," Cavendish said.

"Hushovd was there, so too was Rojas.

"All nine guys on the team did a great job today. That's what makes it extra satisfying."

Hushovd stayed out of trouble to keep the yellow jersey, to be one second ahead of Cadel Evans after five days of racing.

Rounding out the top three is Frank Schleck of Leopard Trek at four seconds.

The good burghers of Cap Frehel on the Atlantic coast of the Cotes d'Amor, who had waited 98 editions to host a stage, were treated to a belter of a finish on the Boulevard de la Marche.

A windshift late in the day robbed the French pair of Thomas Voeckler (Europcar), a former wearer of the yellow jersey, and Jeremy Roy (FDJ) their day of glory.

The pair had launched a brave attack 30km from the finish and led by just over a minute before being swallowed up the chasing bunch.

Roy was the first to be caught three kilometres from the finish, leaving Voeckler dangling out in front for a few more hundred metres before he too was swept up by the teams of the sprinters.

On the first fast flat stage of this year's race, it came as no surprise that there was an early breakaway that featured four riders - Jose Gutierrez (Movistar), Tristan Valentine (Cofidis), Sebastien Turgot (Europcar) and Anthony Delaplace of Saur-Sojasun.

At one point the quartet led by as much as six minutes before being swallowed up by the team of the yellow jersey wearer at the start of the day, Thor Hushovd's Garmin Cervelo, which did much of the bullocking work at the pointy end of the peloton.

The big news before the start of today's stage was that the race jury had amended the finishing times of a number of riders after a review of the chaos of a major fall near the finish of stage one into Mont Alouettes on Saturday, which was won by the Belgium Philippe Gilbert of Omega Pharma Lotto.

The three riders who profited from the jury decision were Sandy Casar (FDJ), Roman Feillu (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Garmin Cervelo's Ryder Hesjedal.

Casar picked up half a minute in general classification, Feillu had his time amended by a massive four minutes, while Hesjedal had his time amended by 35 seconds.

It means that Hesjedal, who had lost 74 seconds, moved up the general classification to be only down 39 seconds on Hushovd at the start of the day.

But the time lost by pre-race favourite Alberto Contador stands.

Team Leopard Trek's Fabian Cancellara revealed via hisTwitter feed that he is suffering from a sinus condition and was on a course of antibiotics.

Meanwhile, Gilbert, the wearer of the yellow jersey after the opening stage, is down a team mate after Jurgen Van de Walle became the first rider to abandon the Tour.

The Belgium crashed on the first stage after touching wheels with Garmin Cervelo's Ramunas Navarddaukas.

The first rider to abandon today's stage was the Slovenian time-trial champion Janez Brajkovic of RadioShack after he was involved in a crash with Rabobank's Robert Gesink that also involved Contador. Movistar's Christophe Kernalso  also stepped off his bike and into a team car at Goudelin 70km from the finish.

Brajokovic's best result as a professional was beating Contador at the Dauphine Libere a year ago.

A little further along the road, former world champion Tom Boonen and Gert Steegmans of Quick Step, who were riding about two-thirds of the way down on the main bunch, also came to grief on a narrow stretch of road.

While Steegmans was back and racing double quick time, Boonen wasn't as lucky.

He eventually got back on a replacement bike and was clearly in a lot of pain from a deep laceration to his right thigh and favouring his right shoulder, but he lost a big chunk of time even when paced by team mate Addy Engels to be well out of contention for the day's stage honours.

Elsewhere, the cycling world was rocked again by news that Australian rider Carly Hibberd had died yesterday after being involved in an accident with a motor car in northern Italy.

Hibberd, 26, from Brisbane, was out training in the Como region of Lombardy, the website ininsubria.it was reporting.

She was with Colombian rider Diego Tamayo between the towns of Appiano and Lurate Caccivo when she was struck by the car.

After moving to Italy in 2009, Hibberd rode for the Michela Fanini-Record-Rox squad for two years before joining the Cassina Rizzardi A Style Fionucci team at the start of the season.