Because of the weather conditions, the 5th stage had to be planed on its end. If Caruso thought he won by starting in the last difficulty, it was ultimately Roglic who had remained in the shadows throughout the climb which comes out less than 100 meters away and who wins. The Slovenian doubles up and takes the leader’s jersey.
While the 5th stage was supposed to be 218 km, it was finally shortened due to weather conditions. The organization decides to advance the finish line. The stage is 165.6 km long in total and the last ascent of 10.8 km on an average gradient of 7.3% will be the judge this Friday afternoon.
And from the start, six then seven riders were in the lead, namely Anthony Perez (Courtesy), Eric Petter (AEOLO-Comet), Simon Guglielmi (Arkéa Samsic), Florian Stork (DSM), Zdenek Stybar (Jayco AlUla) et Quinn Simmons (Trek – Segafredo). They are joined David Dancers (Soudal – Quick Step).
The gap increases a little and stabilizes at less than three minutes. There are 74 km left and the Bora team from the leader Lennard Kämna who put on the blue jersey of leader of the general classification on Thursday evening starts rolling. The wind is present and the gap with the breakaway is just over two minutes.
After Bora, Ineos put themselves at the front of the peloton and the gap melted. It is only 35 seconds away with 42 km from the finish and there are only four riders left in the breakaway group (Anthony Perez, Davide Ballerini, Simon Guglielmi, Florian Stork). It was finally caught 30 km from the finish.
Make way for the rise of Gualdo who sees from Aert let go. The peloton swallows the kilometers and arrives at the last difficulty of the day, 10.8 km long. The favorites place themselves and UAE accelerates with 5.7km to go, but it’s Caruso (Bahrain) who is the first to try to get out.
Behind, everything is under control for Roglic. At the last kilometer everything explodes and Caruso is joined. The stage is played in a sprint and it is Roglic who wins in front Ciccone et Tao Geoghegan Hart. The Slovenian doubles up and takes the leader’s jersey. It has 4 seconds on Stone and 12 out Almeida.