Peter Sagan (Syk-Liquigas-Doimo) won his second stage of Paris-Nice today, winning the 157 kilometre fifth stage between Pernes-les-Fontaines and Aix-en-Provence. A daring attack with three kilometres to go prevented Mirco Lorenzetto (Ita Lampre) and Alejandro Valverde (Esp - Caisse d'Epargne) from catching him and finishing second and third respectively. "Today was another tough stage and probably the only day for a breakaway that could have gone to the finish line," said Philippe Maudit, sports director. "We talked with the riders at the beginning of the race and asked them to be at the front of the bunch and aware of any possibilities. But we saw so many breakaway's today that nobody really had a chance to escape. The first really long breakaway came at about the 105 kilometres mark when our rider Volodymir Gustov (Ukr) broke free along with Carlos Barredo (Esp-Quick Step), Sylvain Calzati (Fra - Team Sky), and Reine Taaramae (Est-Cofidis) and it was fight, fight, fight until the group was pulled back after a 1:20 maximum by Astana, Caisse d'Epargne and Euskaltel. It looked like the final would be a sprint finish but with three kilometres to go the peloton broke into two parts and the second part never came back. At the end many teams were working hard Liquigas comes, Lampre comes, Euskaltel comes and finally Christophe Le Mevel (Fra-Francaise Des Jeux) made a strong attack and the rest of the peloton exploded and we had nobody in the first group, so that was not so good. There are still two stages to the end so there is still the opportunity to do something good."
Stage 5: Pernes-les-Fontaines - Aix-en-Provence - 157 km
1 Peter Sagan (Svk) Liquigas - Doimo
2 Mirco Lorenzetto (Ita) Lampre - Farnese Vini
3 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne
86 Volodymir GUSTOV (Ukr) Cervélo TeamTest