Katusha went into today's stage of the Tour de France with a dual objective. On one hand, they wanted to win the stage with Alexander Kristoff and on the other they wanted to limit the losses for GC leader Yury Trofimov. While Kristoff crashed out of the battle, Trofimov did surprisingly well.

It was always predicted to be an important stage in the 2014 Tour de France, but even those with a crystal ball would have been shocked to see the carnage that unfolded in stage 5 on the cobblestones of France. But for Team Katusha’s top riders, things went well and produced results to be proud of. Russian National champion Aleksandr Porsev was part of a group coming in at the 2-minute mark, taking 11th place behind winner Lars Boom after more than three hours of racing. Teammate Iurii Trofimov also performed well on the cobbles coming in soon after Porsev and positioning himself in 17th on the GC after five days of racing. 

"The stage was really tough with the bad weather and the cobbles, but it was the same for everyone," Trofimov said. "I tried to do my best today and I think it went pretty well. I finished in one of the first groups and I didn’t lose too much time. I hope in the coming days the weather will be better."

"In talking about the GC, I think today we can be satisfied with the result of Iurii Trofimov," team director Dmitry Konyshev said. "He did a very strong race in such difficult conditions, over terrain he is not used to. Today Iurii was on the same level with almost all of the GC contenders and even gained some time to others.  The fight for the GC is still ahead but at the moment everything is ok.

"Unfortunately we could not fight for a stage victory because our guy Alex Kristoff crashed in a bad moment before the first cobbled section. It was not a dangerous crash but after he rode some kilometers, he had to stop again to change bikes so he lost time and it was impossible to come back. It was bad luck, but today many riders had the same. It was a very hard race."

Tomorrow brings stage 6 from Arras to Reims at 194 km.