The gloves came off with 4.6km to go when Evenepoel launched off his teammate's wheel with Roglič and Soler the only riders to hold on. As the lead group shrank, Evenepoel still had two teammates to Roglič's one, and they set a furious pace. With 6.7km to go, Grmay was the last rider caught as Bahrain-Victorious led the peloton. Parra earned the most combative rider award but was quickly dropped as the single-file peloton stretched thinner and thinner and came closer and closer. Grmay attacked with 9km to go, leaving Parra, Amezqueta and Azurmendi to chase as the gradient kicked up. Racing into the climb as if they were doing a sprint lead-out, Soudal-QuickStep's pace behind and the forcing of the two Kern Pharma riders whittled the gap down to a minute with 10km to go. That gap fell rapidly under the pace of the Belgian team and as they hit the lower, unofficial slopes of the ascent to Lo Port. Meanwhile, Soudal-QuickStep took up the task of closing down the escape group, which still held 2:30 with 22.6km to go. The gap fell just under two minutes as Lotto-Dstny came forward to hold the gap there.Īfter taking the maximum points atop the Coll de Som, Martin sat up, pleased to have padded his lead in the mountains classification. They eventually joined back up with Grmay, making seven up the road before the intermediate sprint in Mora la Nova with 103.5km to go. Hayter and Martin sat up on the long, gradual descent, with only the latter waiting for a chasing quartet, with Ibai Azurmendi (Euskaltel-Euskadi), José Felix Parra, Pablo Castrillo and Héctor Carretero (Kern Pharma), and Julen Amezqueta (Caja-Rural Seguros RGA) joining forces. There appeared to be an easing of the pace in the peloton when the gap got to four minutes as some of the Spanish riders were keen to join the leaders for TV time. With Martin the best-placed 5:25 down, Jumbo-Visma had to keep the gap under control. Martin led the group over the top of the first climb with a 2:30 advantage on the peloton. It took the early breakaway some time to establish but when it did, it was a quality trio of climbing talent, with Guillaume Martin (Cofidis), Ethan Hayter (Ineos Grenadiers) and Tsgabu Girmay (Jayco-AlUla) who emerged ahead. Three riders did not start: Quinn Simmons (Trek-Segafredo), Anders Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) and Oscar Riesebeek (Alpecin-Deceuninck). The 160 kilometres before the final climb were punctuated by two categorised climbs, the Alt de Bot coming in the first 30km, the short but steep mid-stage Coll de Som and ended with 50 kilometres of flat roads to catch the early breakaway. The stage 5 summit finish at Lo Port, a hors-categorie ascent, capped off the 176.6-kilometre stage from Tortosa and was always going to be the most decisive stage, with the general classification a dead heat between jersey holder Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel after the first four stages. In addition to cementing his position atop the overall standings, Roglič leads the points classification and mountains classification, while Evenepoel is the best young rider. Not tomorrow probably but for sure the day after - three days and we'll do our best and see."
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