Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) sealed the overall victory on the final stage of O Gran Camiño, finishing third behind stage victor Alessandro Pinarello (NSN) on the steep slopes of the Alto Monte Santa Trega.
Starting the day in the leader’s jersey with a 34-second lead after winning stage 4, Yates missed out on a second stage win but did enough to win the general classification.
Second on the stage, Jørgen Nordhagen (Visma-Lease a Bike) also finishes second overall, whilst Pinarello, who led the race earlier in the week, rounds out the final podium in third.
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Pinarello led a select group of four to the line after Yates set a challenging pace on the final climb, with Movistar’s Iván Romeo fading in the final metres to settle for fourth.
“The next races will be Liège and the Giro. We will see, I hope to be better. I started the season well in Algarve, and I searched here for the victory, so I’m really happy.”
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How it unfolded
Saturday’s final stage started flat, building up to a double ascent of the Alto da Valga and a finish atop the 3.6km Alto Monte Santa Trega. It took around 10km for the first part of the day’s breakaway to form, with four riders jumping away from the peloton with relative ease.
They were Gorka Sorarrain (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Sinuhé Fernandez (Burgos Burpellet BH), Diego Uriarte (Equipo Kern Pharma) and Santiago Mesa (Anicolor-Campicarn), and they were later joined by Nadav Raisberg (NSN), Rafael Reis (Anicolor-Campicarn) and Carlos Salgueiro (Tavira-Crédito Agrícola) to make it seven in the lead.
They hit the first ascent of the Alto da Valga with a two-minute lead, but as soon as the road went up, the gap went down, and riders started to drop from the break and get caught. Only three went over the top in the lead, Sorarrain, Fernandez and Uriarte. They held onto a slender lead onto the flat, with Movistar leading the chase, in hope of moving up their leader Iván Romeo.
The gap grew out on the run-in to the second ascent of the Valga climb, but when it started, it was advantage peloton again. NSN started setting a high pace on the climb, which stretched and shrunk the peloton, but race leader Adam Yates was comfortable near the front. Around 3km from the top, George Bennett launched an attack from the bunch, quickly catching the three leaders and forcing Yates to chase.
Bennett went over the top of the climb a handful of seconds ahead of lone chaser Jan Castellon and 20 seconds over the Yates group, with the leader successfully policing things himself despite not having a teammate with 25km still to race.
Castellon joined Bennett on the plateau, but the gap was only small, and they were swept up by the small main bunch with 22km to go as the road started descending. On the flat, a number of dropped riders got back on, including Yates’ teammate Kevin Vermaerke.
With 13km to go, Castellon attacked again and built a gap of 30 seconds, but the race was set to be decided on the 3.6km, 7.5% finishing climb. In the bunch, it was Visma-Lease a Bike with four riders who set the pace into the base of the climb. Castellon was reeled in on the early slopes and Vermaerke started to wind up the pace for Yates.
The Brit accelerated with 2km to go and kept pushing as he rode riders off his wheel. Nordhagen, Pinarello and Romeo stuck with him into the final kilometre and onto the stretch of steep cobbles, making it a four-rider drag to the line. Strong on the cobbles, Pinarello had the punch to claim the stage win, but it wasn’t too much disappointment for Yates in third, taking home the overall title.
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