Dylan Groenewegen wins, Sam Bennett loses position in Tour sprint | Video

Dylan Groenewegen, in the Dutch champion's jersey on the far right, wins stage 6 of the Tour de France after a very tight sprint

Dylan Groenewegen (Team Jayco AlUla) has won stage 6 at Tour de France after just about getting the verdict of last year's sprint king Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) after 163.5km of racing from Mâcon to Dijon.

Ireland's Sam Bennett (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) is still searching for a victory - indeed a clear run at a finish line - after he looked ideally placed approaching the finish today but lost position when it mattered most.

Bennett, without a final lead-out man to look after him deep into the final kilometre, was initially parked on the back of the Uno X-Mobility train, as it was leading out yesterday's runner-up Alexander Kristoff.

However, as the Uno-X Mobility riders faded and were swamped by the stronger men, they drifted backwards out of contention, and so too did Ireland's Bennett. The Carrick-on-Suir man drifted right back, to place 25th, after clearly not bothering once he was out of contention to win.

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But up front there were no such problems for Groenewegen and Philipsen, both of whom got solid lead-outs and sprinted on different sides of the road, crossing the line with neither sure who had won.

But the photo finish showed Groenewegen had won from Philipsen, who couldn't resist leaning towards Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), who had to ease right back or hit the barriers. In truth, however, Philipsen always looked like he had the edge on Van Aert for speed in the final dash to the line.

Groenewegen, who faced an unprecedented nine-month suspension for causing a crash at Tour de Pologne four years ago, was taking his first Tour de France win today since 2022, and now his six such victories in his palmares.

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While Arnaud de Lie (Lotto-Dstny) put up a very good challenge, he was out-paced fair and square, and quite comfortably in the end, by both the winner and runner-up, before being swamped by several others on the line.

It was stage 3 winner Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), in the green jersey, who came through for 3rd, with Fernando Gaviria (Movistar Team) 4th, Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious) 5th and De Lie 6th.

Ahead of the 25.3km TT from Nuits-Saint-Georges to Gevrey-Chambertin tomorrow, there was no change in the general classification today; Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) leading by 45 seconds from Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) with defending champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) 3rd at 50 seconds.

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