As it happened: Sprinters finally have their day on Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes stage 5

And here’s what the winner had to say: “Of course, winning is always nice and especially in a race like this, so I’m really happy with this stage win.”
“Probably my shape [at the start of the week] is the same as it is now, but the last two stages were a bit easier and suited me with my current form.”
“And I think it was a difficult start, even difficult today, sometimes it’s painful with the crash I had before the race.”
“But with the team I had around me, chasing the break all day, I just had to try.”

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Big credit due to all of Visma-Lease a Bike, riders like Bruno Armirail putting in loads of hard work throughout the day, but Eduardo Affini’s contribution in the final metres arguably the most crucial ingredient of all.

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Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) remains in the overall lead for a fifth straight day.

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Top three finishers on the stage were Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike); Hugo Hofstetter (NSN) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious), but really only one rider mattered today.

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Van Aert truly left his rivals no option there: he was perfectly positioned on the righthand side of the road by his teammates in third place until about 250 metres to go, and then he let rip to win by a bike-length. Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) was right about Van Aert being the rider to follow, but the Belgian was in complete control all the way to the finish.

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And here’s a first picture of the winner…

2026 Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes: Wout van Aert claims the win (Image credit: Getty Images)

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Hugs and pats on the back for all the Visma-Lease a Bike team after the line and that’s no surprise. This is Wout van Aert’s first win in his first race since Paris-Roubaix and for all his doubts about his Tour de France form right up to before the stage, he’s certainly delivered today.

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) wins stage 5 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

2026-06-11T15:18:28.715Z

The sprint is launched, Wout van Aert is ahead and the Belgian wins!

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500 metres left, Wout van Aert on third wheel.

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Three Visma riders leading but Ineos is trying to move into position too.

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Final kilometre, Visma still leading

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The road has broadened even more to three lanes and Visma-Lease a Bike suddenly pile on the pressure.

Cofidis are still leading and keeping the speed high, but Bahrain and Jayco are close behind.

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Former Giro d’Italia stage winner and time trial expert Benjamin Thomas leading the string right now.

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A sweeping right turn into a much broader road and Cofidis lead into the final three kilometres

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Organisation website reports that Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step) has got the most combative rider of the stage, by the way.

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Speeds of 55 kilometres an hour. Flat, well-surfaced and straight roads doing nothing to slow the pace.

On the right, Visma; next to them a line of Red Bull riders; then Cofidis and Tudor; then EF. The tension is rising fast as the race moves into the final five kilometres.

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Race leader Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) is staying glued to his teammates’ line of back wheels, about three or four riders back from the head of affairs. He’s clearly determined to spend at least one more day in yellow.

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João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) sits up, nine kilometres out. It’s been a tough race for the Portuguese star, with no Tour almost a certainty and his targets now likely set on later in the year.

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Narrower roads than before, and the speed eases a little now the break is caught. A delegation of Visma-Lease a BIke remains firmly in place on the right-hand side of the front of the bunch, though.

After a last burst of energy from Guernalec and Dhondt and 170-odd kilometres off the front, the break is over.

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Is it so surprising the break are refusing to give up? To quote Bob Dylan, ‘If you’ve got nothing you’ve got nothing to lose’, and with the mountains looming, unless you’re a GC rider or an out-and-out climber, this is very much the last chance saloon for any breakaways.

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The break is splitting apart as Hugo Houle (Alpecin-Premier Tech) sits up. Just five ahead now.

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Reinderink is continuing to hammer on the front, mind, so the break is not going down without a last fight.

Just 17 seconds left for the six ahead. There was a brief flicker of hope for the break when the gap suddenly shot up to 50 seconds, but that’s all in the past now.

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Current average speeds of nearly 60kmh on near pancake-flat terrain might have something to do with that, of course.

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Lotto-Intermarché have also started to contribute and a major chunk of time suddenly disappears from the six riders’ lead. Just 26 seconds now.

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The weather is staying warm and dry, by the way, and still only 21 C at the finish, which also contributes to the high speed.

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The terrain itself is definitely not favourable for the break mind, rather than anything technical, it’s all taking place on a broad, well-surfaced ‘A’ road and the bunch can surely see the break ahead at times.

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One last reminder of the six riders in the peloton: Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step), Thibault Guernalec (TotalEnergies), Julen Arriolabengoa (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Felix Engelhardt (Jayco-AlUla), Hugo Houle (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Robbe Dhondt (Picnic PostNL).

2026-06-11T14:48:19.546Z

Ooh, that’s interesting. For all the six have been out there for well over 150 kilometres, the gap isn’t just holding, it’s actually gone up again. Just from 45 to 51 seconds, but a slight boost to morale at this point in the game for sure.

And the six remain together, but the gap has now dropped to 48 seconds. A bunch sprint is beginning to feel like a forgone conclusion, but the six are proving very tenacious.

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Despite the break’s best efforts, the gap is tumbling slightly faster now, and it’s now just a fraction over a minute.

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The break is picking up the pace as well, with Reinderink doing much of the work.

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A very long, lined-out bunch is riding down very straight, flat roads, but despite the exposed terrain the trees and a few buildings currently lining each side of the road make it unlikely that what little wind there is will split the peloton.

And the gap is now at 1:30. Just eleven seconds less than 25 kilometres before, so it’s very much a holding pattern for now.

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Well over 2,100 metres of today’s total of 2,500 metres of vertical gain now behind them for the peloton, by the way, providing yet more encouragement for the sprinters.

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It’s not just Bauhaus who rates Wout van Aert’s chances either. Interesting to see how Visma-Lease a Bike are constantly putting a rider on the front as well. Likely a sign that for all Van Aert has been fretting about his condition, they are keeping the faith in him for today, too.

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And Cofidis, Tudor and EF continue to keep things under control in the bunch.

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The Tour Auvergne-Rhòne-Alpes is never that favourable for fastmen, but last year there were two opportunities, which is double what’s on offer in 2026: stage 2 bunch sprint was won by Jonathan Milan, while stage 5 ‘s mass dash went to Jake Stewart.

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The break aren’t giving up without a fight, though, and collaboration still looks pretty good in the six ahead, even if their margin for success, already narrow, is shrinking even more.

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It wasn’t very windy before (16kmh at the start), and it’s even less windy (9kmh) now as the pack head onto the flat plains surrounding the Parc des Oiseaux. So despite multiple changes of direction in the finale, the odds of an echelon suddenly evolving are shrinking fast with each kilometre.

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Cofidis, working for Bryan Coquard – a veteran French sprinter, 55 victories in his palmares, but never a winner in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes come to the front of the pack to pay their dues when it comes to pulling back the break. And the gap duly shrinks a little more, to 1:28.

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It may have a new name, but the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes still always has plenty of opportunities of classic shots of the peloton wending its way past some fast-ripening vineyards somewhere in southern France. Like this one.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

And the gap continues to slowly melt in the warm southern French sunshine, down to 1:41.

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The three riders first across the line in the sprint were:
1. Arriolabengoa, 10 pts
2. Engelhardt, 6 pts
3. Reinderink, 4 pts
So no significant change for the points ranking, where (assuming he finishes), Nadav Raisberg (NSN) will remain the points lead after the stage, just as he has been since Monday.

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And there was no sprint action in the peloton, either, as Visma-Lease a Bike continue to tap out a steady pace at the front of the peloton, around two minutes behind the six stage leaders.

Arriolabengoa (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA)gets the maximum points with zero opposition from his breakaway companions as they trundle underneath the sprint banner at Blacé (km 108.7).

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The bunch clearly doesn’t want to haul the break back in too soon, but the sprinters’ teams won’t want a repeat of Wednesday’s scenario where they missed out – by painfully little – either.

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Bahrain Victorious, working for sprinter Phil Bauhaus, are adding their shoulder to the wheel in the bunch to chase the six ahead.

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2:15 the gap, so the six ahead will get the lion’s share of the points.

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The stage’s one intermediate sprint at Blacé (km 108.7) is fast hauling into view. No time bonuses, but a useful haul of points in the green jersey competition.

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2:10 the gap.

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Today’s finish at the Villars-les-Dombes/Parc des Oiseaux is Europe’s largest wildlife park dedicated to birds and gets 300,000 visitors a year. However, it’s also famous for cycling fans as the place where Mark Cavendish took his fourth stage win in the 2016 Tour de France. It was the 30th of his career, ahead of stars of the calibre of Alexander Kristoff and Peter Sagan. But the victory celebrations were also marred a little by a protest from Marcel Kittel about possible irregularities by Cavendish in the sprint, with the result delayed before the win was definitively upheld in Cavendish’s favour.

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The peloton has covered nearly half of the 2,500 metres of elevation gain in today’s stage, with just one lengthy, draggy ascent to go before they head out of the hills for good and the last 100 kilometres of much gentler terrain. The gap for the break remains stable at 2:30.

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The gap stabilizes at around 2:25. Puncture for Netcompany Ineos stage racer Carlos Rodríguez.

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Given we’ve already had all the mountains points on offer, by the way, and the rider who grabbed the two available, Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-QuickStep) is a long way down, assuming he completes the stage, France’s Clément Braz Afonso (Groupama-FDJ) will remain in the top spot overall in that ranking for a fourth straight day.

2026-06-11T11:59:25.379Z

Having shrunk to a bare 20-25 seconds advantage, after none of the counter attackers, including breakaway specialist Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto-Intermarché, managed to get across to the break, the six are once again building an advantage. At this point, 148kms from the line, it’s ballooned to 2:20 and counting.

The half-dozen are maintaining a scant 30 second advantage as they tackle a long section of downhill. Certainly nobody’s hanging about – the day’s average speed has been a brisk(given the hills in the first part) 38kmh so far.

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Who said this was the break of the day? (Ok, we did.) Their advantage has now shrunk to just 25 seconds and more attacks are flying out of the front half of the bunch.

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Of the six ahead, Canadian veteran Houle is by far the most decorated, winning a stage of the Tour de France in the Pyrenees back in 2022.

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Here’s a shot from today’s race of GC leader Alex Baudin, winner of stage 1 from a break and able to maintain his top spot through the first big GC challenge of this year’s race, Tuesday’s TTT.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

2026-06-11T11:41:17.493Z

The gap continues to fall as the six grind their way over a series of small but relentless climbs early on. There’s 2,500 metres of vertical gain on this stage, and nearly all of it is in the first half of the day’s racing, with around a third already covered.

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Their advantage has now dropped to 1:25 as Visma-Lease a Bike and Cofidis, the latter presumably working for Bryan Coquard, give chase.

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Of the six ahead, the biggest ‘threat’ on GC is Robbe Dhondt (Picnic PostNL), 15:00 down.So EF Education-EasyPost will do a lot of the early spadework keeping the break at a reasonable distance, and their leader Alex Baudin in contention, that size of a margin means it’ll be up to the sprinters’ teams to do a lot of the work in the second part of the day.

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It’s dry and sunny, incidentally, but not too hot, 20 degrees and set to stay at around that temperature for the next few hours. Wind a relatively gentle 16kmh, mostly crosswinds for the whole day and lots of changes of race route, so you can’t rule out the chance of an echelon somewhere along the way…

The break’s advantage is now stabilizing at around 2:30 as they reach the highest point of the hilly early section.

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And here’s a first photo of the half dozen leaders

2026 Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes stage 5: the early break (Image credit: Getty Images)

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The advantage of the six ahead has now risen to over 2:30. It looks like we’ve got the break of the day.

The six rider break has now reached the summit of the Col de la Gachet (1.6km at 4.4%), and Reijnderink picks up the sole point on offer again.

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Their advantage is already over a minute and fast rising.

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He’s part of a six-man breakaway that has formed early on over this climb. It contains: Reijnderink (Soudal Quick-Step), Thibault Guernalec (TotalEnergies), Julen Arriola-Bengoa (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Felix Engelhardt (Jayco-AlUla), Hugo Houle (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Robbe Dhondt (Picnic PostNL)

Pepijn Reijnderink (Soudal Quick-Step) claims the lone point on offer at the summit of Cat.4 Côte de la Croix-Blanch.

2026-06-11T10:56:07.697Z

On the subject of which, a reminder of who’s who at the top of the different overall rankings:

GC leader: Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost)
Mountains: Clément Bras Afonso (Groupama-FDJ United)
BYR: Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost)
Points: Nadav Raisberg (NSN)
Teams: Groupama-FDJ United

2026-06-11T10:51:05.489Z

Somewhat weirdly for a ‘sprint stage’, we’re straight onto a climb as soon as the start flag dropped, the Cat.4 Côte de la Croix-Blanch (3km at 5%). Just one point on offer at the top of the climb for the mountains ranking.

Three non-starters according to the official race website: veteran allrounder Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), due to unspecified sickness, and Movistar duo Ivan Romeo, the reigning Spanish National Champion, and Ecuadorian climber Jefferson Cepeda.

And stage 5 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes from Saint-Chamond to Parc des Oiseaux – Villars-les-Dombes is officially underway.

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