LARS BOOMS TO STAGE WIN
Holland's Lars Boom prevailed amid the carnage which saw defending champion Chris Froome abandon the Tour de France to win a thrilling fifth stage over the cobbles of northern France on Wednesday.
The Ypres to Arenburg Porte du Hinaut stage commemorated 100 years since the start of World War One and featured many of the cobbles used in the Paris-Roubaix one-day race 'the Hell of the North'.
Wet weather forced race organisers to remove two of the nine cobbled sections, but Froome's falls came prior to the first, where the day's racing drama began.
Boom (Belkin) was in the day's breakaway and proved the strongest over the cobbles on an epic day's racing to win by 19 seconds from Vincenzo Nibali and his Astana team-mate Jakob Fuglsang.
It was a sensational ride from the Italian as he preserved his place in the leader's yellow jersey, by two seconds from Fuglsang and 44 seconds from Peter Sagan (Cannondale).
