This years fifth stage was a a 188km journey from Granada to Roquetas de Mar was a bit of a surprise as a break away group made a lead on the main bunch allowing Australia's Simon Clarke of EF Education First-Drapac to win the stage. This is EF Education First-Drapac first ever grand tour stage win with Clarke out sprinting Bauke Mollema of Trek-Segafredo and Alessandro De Marchi of BMC Racing. The big news of the day is Rudy Molard of Groupama-FDJ was able to take hold of the Red Leaders Jersey with a 1 minute lead over Kwiatkowski as he managed to finish in the group behind Clarke.
The stage looked challenging from the outset but although it was not a flat stage, no one really expected any break aways to be successful on stage 5. A group of 24 riders made the first break 40 km into the stage but were brought back into the main group. The peloton was led by Team Sky for most of the day an seemed to be fine with another 25 man break taking place at with still 120km to go.
The group managed to extend their lead to over seven minutes with Cofidis rider Stephane Rossetto, Alessandro De Marchi of BMC Racing, Bauke Mollema of Trek-Segafredo and Simon Clarke managed to work their way clear of this group to break away further. It was only a matter of time until one would break clear at the finial spring at the end of the stage with Clarke managing to take the victory.
Overall classification after stage Five
Rudy Molard of Groupama-FDJ is now the holder of the Red Leaders Jersey with a 1 minute lead over Kwiatkowski going into stage six.
- Rudy Molard (Fra) Groupama-FDJin 18 hours 27 minutes 20 seconds
- Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol) Team Sky at 1 minute 1 second
- Emanuel Buchmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe at 1 minute 8 seconds
Tomorrow - Stage 6 Start From Huercal Overa to Jan Javier
Link to stage six route map
The 6th Stage of the Vuelta a Espania, is a 156km ride from Huercal Overa north to Jan Javier. The route the riders will follow is not entirely flat but will most like be a stage for the sprinters. The stage will go mostly along the Mediterranean Sea with the riders traveling through the towns of Aguilas, Mazarròn and Cartagena. The last 15km of the stage are completely flat, so it will give the teams and sprinters plenty of time to organize themselves for the finish. There will be an intermediate sprint at the 118 kilometer mark, with minor time bonuses, and the finish will give the first three riders across the line a 10, 6 and 4 seconds time bonus. So this could be an interesting stage and see some of the general classification riders sprinting to the finish.
I'll be covering each stage of the Vuelta A Espana, giving a breakdown of each days stage results, my previous post for @cyclefeed were the results of stage four of this years Vuelta, so feel free to have a look:
@run.vince.run/2018-vuelta-a-espana-stage-4
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Please Note all maps are made by myself using Strava