Liquigas' Filippo Pozzato won a dramatic stage five of the Tour de France in a sprint finish from Oscar Freire, while favourite Alexandre Vinokourov crashed 27 kilometres from the finish, and finished one minute 20 seconds off the pace.

The Lampre team had chased down attacks in the final ten kilometres from Yaroslav Popovych, Laurent Lefevre and David Millar, though their sprinter Daniele Bennati was unable to get the better of compatriot Pozzato, who edged out Freire for the victory by he smallest of margins.

He now moves to third in the overall classification, 35 seconds behind Fabian Cancellara. Vinokourov was the day's big loser in the overall standings, dropping back to 81st position, two minutes and ten seconds back.

Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis) made clear his intentions to take a commanding lead in the King of Mountains by attacking early on with Inaki Isasi (Euskaltel) and Leif Hoste (Predictor-Lotto), and when that failed, tired again, this time with William Bonnet (Credit Agricole) and Philippe Gilbert (FdJ).

He succeeded at the second attempt, and the trio were joined by Barloworld's Giampaolo Cheula after 60 kilometres. They built up a lead that soon grew to almost 15 minutes before the peloton reacted, while Chavanel took all the mountain points available on route. Led by the Caisse d'Epargne and Gerolsteiner teams, the gap was whittled down rapidly over the mid-section of the stage, and was down to just two minutes when they crossed the biggest climb of the day, the Haut-Folin.

Astana's Andreas Kloeden suffered a few nervous moments after crashing before the feeding zone, though after receiving treatment from the Tour medical car, was towed back to the pack by team-mates Daniele Navarro and Paolo Savoldelli.

The second-category Haut-Folin saw the likes of Mark Cavendish, Danilo Napolitano and Thor Hushovd dropped from the pack, while the peloton swallowed up the rapidly-tiring Cheula and Bonnet.

Then was then more drama for the Astana team as race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov fell on the descent of the Haut-Folin, grazing his backside and wrist. Six men from his team dropped back to tow him back to the peloton, though after leading him to the final climb of the day, the third-category Côte de la Croix de la Liberation, he had to go it alone.

Working for Freire, Rabobank led the peloton up the climb, though Lampre took control on the descent and made sure the attempted escapes from Millar, Lefevre and Popovych all failed.

Even race leader Cancellara was not spared a moment of drama, running into the grass on a sharp corner as he briefly led the chase. He recovered quickly though, and suffered none of the misfortune of Vinokourov.

With the Tom Boonen and his Quickstep train not in contention, a free-for-all developed over the final kilometre, with Pozzato coming round the left hand side of the bunch to take his second-ever Tour de France stage win.

Eurosport