André Griepel won the sprint into Saint-Quentin taking his second successive stage win. Matt Goss took second with Juan-José Haedo third, Samuel Dumoulin fourth and Mark Cavendish fifth. The remains of the breakaway of four riders were only caught within the last 500 metres. Again there was a crash near the finish – just before getting to the last kilometre. This time it was Peter Sagan's turn to be unlucky. He got caught up, so missed out on Green Jersey points at the finish.
The tough uphill finish didn't appear to suit Cav after his crash yesterday and possibly Rouen would have been more his finish.
Apart from an exciting finish it was a pretty tedious ride across flat countryside today. Fortunately the promised showers held off the peloton, although it did rain in Saint-Quentin during the morning.
No change to the overall classification. See here plus the other Jersey competitions. In the Green Peter Sagan still leads with 155 points from Matt Goss (137 points), André Griepel (132), Mark Cavendish (119) and Alessandro Petacchi on 91.
Sprinter Marcel Kittel, who had been suffering from stomach problems since the start of the Tour, abandoned 40K into today's stage. He becomes the fourth person to quit the Tour.
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