Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) sprinted to his second straight Vuelta a España stage win on Wednesday’s stage 5 into Burriana. The Australian speedster narrowly held off Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), with Dries Van Gestel (TotalEnergies) taking third.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) finished safely on the day to retain the race leader’s red jersey, and in fact he padded his advantage with a few bonus seconds from the day’s intermediate sprint.
- Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla) crashing out of the race in the neutral zone was the big story of the early goings. The 26-year-old rode to seventh at the Giro d’Italia earlier this year, but his Vuelta was short and painful, starting with a crash on the first day and ending with another.
- Few riders wanted to spend a long day out front given the likelihood of getting caught on stage 5. It fell to Eric Fagundez (Burgos-BH) to be the lone doomed rider off the front for a while.
- Mountains leader Eduardo Sepulveda (Lotto-Dstny) bridged up to him and dropped him on day’s main climb, but Fagundez and then Sepulveda were both caught with plenty of racing still to go, leaving no break left and little interest from anyone in changing that fact. This was to be a sprint stage through and through.
- It wasn’t until about 5 km to go that the main sprinters’ teams really took up the pace-setting, with Soudal-QuickStep, Alpecin-Deceuninck, and EF Education-EasyPost putting themselves into the best position. With around 3 km to go there was a crash as the peloton rounded the corner that impacted some of Alpecin’s riders, though none of the major sprint contenders were involved.
- Alpecin-Deceuninck took sole control at the front with around 500 meters to go and from there, the team executed a textbook lead-out. Groves was protected until around 150 meters to go, when he launched with Ganna coming up rapidly from behind. It was close at the line, but Groves took the victory.
Brief results
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Quote of the day
Kaden Groves had every reason to be pleased with the outcome after a stage that saw his team deliver him perfectly to victory even despite some trickiness in the finale.
My team was fantastic again. We had a crash, we lost two guys in the roundabout with around two and a half to go, but luckily my lead-out men were still there and we could get organized for the final.
Brief analysis
- Even with the late crash, Alpecin-Deceuninck could hardly have drawn it up better than that on stage 5. There’s always a risk when you put a strong lead-out on the front that you might pull off too early, leaving your sprinter in the wind and therefore in a worse position than he might have been without a lead-out at all, but that was not the case in Burriana, where Alpecin launched Groves at the perfect time.
- With Ganna’s prowess on the track, it perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise that he can put on such a turn of speed, but he has not been involved in many Grand Tour sprints up to this point. He may get more opportunities now. With Ineos GC leader Geraint Thomas already having lost time at this Vuelta, the team has to be pleased to suddenly have a potential sprinter at the race in Ganna, who nearly won stage 5 with hardly any team support in the finale compared to the textbook lead-out that delivered Groves.
- It’s only a few seconds here and there, but Evenepoel is clearly invested in getting everything that he can out of each day of the Vuelta, even if it’s just at the intermediate sprints. If he continues to hunt those seconds, he could actually start compiling a decent advantage on bonus seconds alone. That said, it’s on climbs like the one looming on Thursday’s stage 6 where this race will probably be won or lost.
- Jayco’s Vuelta went from bad to worse as Dunbar crashed out of the race. He had already dropped out of GC contention due to a crash in the opening team time trial, but now the talented Irishman won’t be contending for any stage wins either.
- Just five stages into the race, Groves already has a huge lead in the points classification, with nearly twice as many points as second-placed Andrea Vendrame (AG2R Citroën).
Social round-up
Filippo Ganna wasn’t a pre-stage favorite, but he had a chance and he went for it on stage 5.
TV commentators weren’t entirely certain at first that Groves had indeed won a very close sprint, but his teammate celebrating a few riders back had no doubts.
Up next
After two days for the sprinters, the climbers will come back to the fore at the Vuelta a España on a stage that will culminate in a climb that cannot be underestimated. The ominously named Pico del Buitre (the Beak of the Vulture) stretches 10.9 km at an average gradient of about 8 percent. A lengthy stretch in the double digits in the second half of the ascent will be a great place to go on the attack. The stage favorites include some obvious names: Jonas Vingegaard and Primož Roglič of Jumbo-Visma and race leader Remco Evenepoel.
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