Today´s breakaway of the day was gone for most of the stage, a late attack of J. Pantano in the final 20km´s was successful, as he took the win in Vielha Va d´Aran. BORA – hansgrohe had not the best day today, after two difficult and cold stages the German team pulled hard to cross the line with the reduced bunch.
The Stage
Stage 5 was another challenging day for the peloton. Today´s longest stage took the riders from Llívia to Vielha Va d´Aran over 212.9km with two categorized climbs and some technical descents, the stage again proved difficult. All in all, the stage had an elevation of about 5.600m and would be an important stage for the final GC.
The Team Tactics
BORA – hansgrohe was caught by the back foot in yesterday´s first summit finish. After two difficult and cold stages the German team started weakened in today´s stage also with one man less, due to the time limit, Alex Saramotins had to give up the race. Unfortunately, the Austrian climber Gregor Mühlberger abandoned the race due to health problems.
The Race
After some kilometres of racing a big group of 12 riders went up the road. The peloton took it easy, therefore the gap increased up to more than 4 minutes. BORA – hansgrohe stayed together in the main bunch and worked for their GC contenders. With less than 40km to the finish line the breakaway shrunk down to 10 riders but they had still an advantage of more than 2 minutes over the bunch.
The finale started 20km before the finish, as the breakaway tried to attack each other. Two riders were able to distance themselves from the former breakaway and went up the road. In a nail-biting finale J. Pantano (Trek-Segafredo) launched a late attack and took the win ahead of V. Laengen (UAE), whilst Pawel Poljanski finished as BORA – hansgrohe best placed rider in the reduced bunch some seconds behind the stage winner.
Results
01 J.Pantano 5:20:53
02 V.S. Laengen +0:00
03 M.Mohoric +0:10
41 P.Poljanski +0:14
From the Finish Line
“Difficult day. Davide hasn’t the legs to go with the favourites, also the weather conditions weren’t the best in the previous days, due to that fact, Gregor had to give up the race today. But we have to look forward, two stages are left and we want to seize our opportunities.” – Jens Zemke, sports director
