Pavel Bittner (dsm-firmenich PostNL) has won stage five of the Vuelta a Espana in hot Seville. After a glorified hike stage, he won the sprint in Spain's fourth largest city, ahead of top favorites Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
Day five of the Vuelta a Espana had the flattest stage on the agenda. It was also the last opportunity for the pure sprinters to show themselves at the front, as the following ten stages will almost all be over (slightly) hilly terrain. Therefore, It was expected that the sprinters' teams would do whatever they could to control a possible breakaway...
After all, there was a breakaway. Ibon Ruiz (Kern Pharma) and Txomin Juaristi (Euskaltel-Euskadi) are two Spaniards; how else could they be? - teamed up to close a gap. At first, the peloton thought it was fine, but that changed. Lotto-Dstny didn't seem quite satisfied with what was happening and launched a counterattack. However, that only happened when the duo was two and a half minutes ahead.
Lotto-Dstny then realized it was up against the odds and decided to sit back. Ruiz and Juaristi were thus the day's leaders. They saw their advantage increase to about five minutes at one point. What followed was a typical hiking stage. One that we often see recurring in big tours. The average speed was around 37 kilometers per hour for a long time, which was indicative of the course of the race.
Spurters' teams keep small leading group on a short leash
In the peloton, it was Alpecin-Deceuninck (Groves) and Visma | Lease a Bike (Van Aert) who led the chase (as far as you could call it chasing). Not many other significant things happened Wednesday afternoon - when the riders once again rode in bizarrely hot conditions. Eurosport commentators Karsten Kroon and Jeroen Vanbelleghem talked at length about buttermilk pancakes, Indiana Jones, and ripe figs at the non-stressful moments on Tuesday afternoon: they could happily continue with that on day five.
With fifty kilometers to go, Ruiz and Juaristi had a two-minute lead left just when the peloton fired ahead. The classification teams wanted to be at the front with some wind on the side to avoid crises. This also increased the pace, costing Ruiz and Juaristi the lead.
Read more below the video.
At 25 kilometers from the finish, there was a prelude to the final sprint at an intermediate sprint, where Groves took the lead at the expense of Van Aert. The peloton then settled down for a short while as it gradually made its way to the outskirts of Seville ahead of the announced bunch sprint. The pace increased rapidly, but plenty of time was still available to show Seville's highlights.
Ten kilometers from the finish, there was one nasty crash to report, that of Rui Costa and Ouwain Doull of EF Education-EasyPost. After that crash, the Portuguese could not return to his bike and left the race via ambulance, which was a hard sell for the American formation. Even without him, however, the Vuelta "just goes on"...
The GC teams picked up the pace to the four-kilometer point, after which the final 3.8 kilometers ran in one long straight line toward the finish line. Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe played it safe there with a high tempo, while the sprinters' teams were on the lookout.
dsm-firmenich PostNL and Alpecin-Deceuninck kicked off 1.8 kilometers from the end, after which things would not stop. In doing so, Van Aert swiftly followed the wheel of the Aussie in Belgian service, knowing that was the wheel to keep an eye on. His teammates took Groves ideally toward the closing kilometer, where Edoardo Affini did his share of the work.
Van Aert took matters into his own hands and attacked from afar, allowing Groves to be unnecessarily surprised. Bittner also came on behalf of dsm-firmenich PostNL, where the Czech pushed his wheel over the finish line just before Van Aert.
Results stage 5 Vuelta a España 2024
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