As a reminder of what the Tourmen achieve in geographical as well as sporting terms, yesterday's stage was not merely scenic, it was also symbolic.
About 30 miles after the start, green valleys and honeyed stone farms gave way to vast prairies of gently waving corn and red brick farms with steep Flemish gables as the peloton rode out of Champagne and into Picardy.
But well before the stage finish here they could only have been cycling through Normandy, with lush green hedges to left and right and cows chewing the cud in pocket-hankie fields next to half-timbered houses. Three regions of France in three hours is good going even by car, but yesterday the peloton whizzed from east at 28 m.p.h. on roads where, going the other way in 1993, Lance Armstrong's current team manager Johan Bruyneel set a speed record for a single stage of the race which lasted six years.
Their sense of urgency was easily explained: with a new rider wearing yellow, Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano, it was not clear whether his team, Once, would attempt to control the unruly elements, and there was only one way to find out.
Lance Armstrong clearly wanted to know how the Spanish squad would react, as two minor offensives early on included his team-mates Viatcheslav Ekimov and Floyd Landis, both of whom became yellow jersey "on the road" before Once restored order. At around halfway, a relatively harmless-looking group were given their heads.
In one way, it was a typical mix: an unknown French newcomer, Christophe Edaleine, an Italian journeyman, Stefano Casagranda, the gargoyle-faced Belgian Ludo Dierckxsens and the Dane Michael Sandstod, whose puncture in Wednesday's team time trial had cost his leader Laurent Jalabert the yellow jersey.
The anomaly was the eventual winner Jaan Kirsipuu, one of the most prolific winners in the peloton, and a man who prefers to hide himself until the final sprint but is still getting over a smashed kneecap from the spring. Equally curiously, his four fellows were happy to take the risk of guiding him to within two miles of the finish, which is rather like presenting your chin to Mike Tyson.
Kirsipuu's was no soft win though: as the fastest sprinter he proved up to the task, and the reward was the third stage win of his career and, equally importantly, vindication for the presence of his AG2R team in the race. They are among the French squads chosen instead of foreign teams with better results, and were desperate to justify their place in the race.
After six days, the pace is finally beginning to tell on the 189 who left Luxembourg. At the feeding station in Noyers Saint Martin the Belgian sprinter Tom Steels, winner of nine stages between 1998 and 2000, became the first to abandon. He should have been in his element but he has not been himself since catching glandular fever last year. The Italian Marco Pinotti was knocked unconscious and lay motionless for some time. He was flown to hospital where he was treated for a broken nose.
At the finish, however, the race was a little safer than two days ago. When the Australian sprinters Robbie McEwen, Baden Cooke and Stuart O'Grady led the peloton across the line after Kirsipuu and company, they had only each other to worry about. There has been a rapid response to McEwen's lecture on Tuesday about the dangers of giant green cardboard hands being waved from the crowd, and the betting company PMU has told its publicity people to stop handing them out in the final kilometre of the stage.
Stage Five
195km from Soissons to Rouen: 1 J Kirsipuu (Est) AG2r Prevoyance 4 hrs 13 mins 33 secs; 2 M Sandstod (Den) CSC-Tiscali; 3 L Dierckxsens (Bel) Lampre-Daikin same time; 4 S Casagranda (Ita) Alessio at 3 secs; 5 C Edaleine (Fra) Jean Delatour at 8 secs.
Overall: 1 I Gonzalez Galdeano (Spa) ONCE 19 hrs 5 mins 56 secs; 2 J Beloki (Spa) ONCE at 4 secs; 3 L Armstrong (US) US Postal at 7 secs; 4 J Jaksche (Ger) ONCE at 12 secs; 5 A Olano (Spa) ONCE at 22 secs.
