Lotto Belisol's Andre Greipel made it two sprint wins in a row, winning Stage 5 of the 2012 Tour de France. The German overcame Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) who had been the first of the fast men to jump, and JJ Haedo (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank).
A crash three kilometres from the finish tangled up points classification leader Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale), a hold up Greipel was able to come back from. Sagan's absence at the finish meant that Goss made up significant ground in the battle for the maillot vert. The Australian will have one more chance this week, on Friday, to claim his so far elusive stage win.
There was no change to the classification leaders with Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Nissan) retaining yellow, Michael Morkov (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank) still wearing the polka dot jersey with no points available for the climbers on Thursday and Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) stays in white for another day as best young rider.