Volta a Catalunya: Jonas Vingegaard dominates stage 5 mountaintop finish to Coll de Pal for solo victory

The race had already exploded on the final climb of the Coll de Pal, cut to 16.7km long at an average gradient of 6.7%, before Vingegaard made his move, but when he went, it was decisive.

Gall, Lipowitz, and Martinez had already attacked before Vingegaard set off, so they had stolen a march 10km from the top, but they weren’t able to hang on for long when the Dane made his way across with just over 6km to go. The Dane was not quite alone as he came across, with Paret-Peintre putting in a remarkable ride to be the last rider able to cling to the wheel.

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The trio at the front of the race on the final climb (L-R): Florian Lipowitz of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Lenny Martinez of Bahrain-Victorious and Valentin Paret-Peintre of Soudal-QuickStep (Image credit: Getty Images)

Behind, Pidcock, Rodriguez, Almeida and Carapaz were among the big names dropping from the thinning bunch before Vingegaard opened the taps 6.8km from the summit. When he did, Evenepoel was initially alive to it, but 500 metres later he, and everyone apart from Paret-Peintre, was gone.

Lipowitz then assumed leader status for Red Bull, launching attacks in what turned out to be the main chase group with Gall, Martinez, and Paret-Peintre. That left Evenepoel in a bind. The Belgian initially looked to minimise the damage but then began to call for contribution from others in the group, namely Skjelmose, UIjtdebroeks, O’Connor, and Fortunato.

Pointing to the presence of his teammate Lipowitz up the road, Evenepoel preferred to let the group lose momentum rather than have to shoulder the whole burden himself.

Gall was calling for cooperation in the first chase group, too, as Lipowitz launched repeated digs, and the Austrian rider decided to attack himself and go it alone in the final kilometre, taking a strong second place.

But the day belonged to Vingegaard, who was firmly in the driving seat ahead of another, albeit less stringent, summit finish at Queralt on Saturday and the Barcelona circuit finale on Sunday.

It was a chaotic start to the day as, for the second stage in a row, the organisers announced an alteration to the race route. The winds were still high and the finish line was moved 2.2km down from the planned summit finish at La Molina. That made things slightly easier but there was still 17km of mountain left for the stage’s final showdown.

There was a similar chaotic start to the race itself, with a huge fight for the breakaway. Several hopefuls attempted to get up the road on the flat opening section but the race ignited on the early climb of the Port Colldarnat (15.3km long at 5%). As riders jumped to the break and the peloton split, the race was in pieces, and several bigger names sensed an opportunity to get up the road.

There were five categorised climbs on Friday’s stage, the lead group led by Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) on the Port Colldarnat (Image credit: Getty Images)

Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) was the chief aggressor, and he had company from the likes of Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), and Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) in a super strong group of 20 that formed further up the climb.

Though strong, that number was unruly, and Ciccone soon looked to break it up, going clear with Soler, and Junior Lecerf (Soudal-QuickStep), before Einer Rubio (Movistar) and Davide Piganzoli (Visma-Lease a Bike) jumped across to form a breakaway of five that would remain out front for most of the day. Ciccone was four minutes down on GC but Soler and Piganzoli were still well in the mix just 26 seconds behind Godon.

After a quick descent it was a long drag up towards the day’s second climb, the Coll de Josa (4.7km at 5%), where Ciccone once again beat Soler to the points as the breakaway took their lead out towards the two-minute mark. Behind Ineos Grenadiers and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe were controlling the peloton.

Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek rides at the front of the breakaway with Davide Piganzoli of Visma-Lease a Bike and Marc Soler of UAE Team Emirates-XRG during the 155.3km stage 5 at Volta a Catalunya (Image credit: Getty Images)

The mid-point of the stage took the riders towards the category 1 Coll de Fumanya (6.7km at 7%), which didn’t see much action beyond Lecerf being dropped from the breakaway. The next climb, the category 1 Collada de Sobirana (7.1km at 6.5%) came soon after, with another breakaway casualty in Rubio, leaving three out front. Ciccone grabbed maximum points again atop both climbs to move to just four points behind classification leader Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarche).

Ciccone used his speed atop the Sobirana to clip away on the treacherous descent, but he was soon rejoined by Soler and Piganzoli, though Red Bull had significantly raised the pace and, with 30km to go, the gap was down to 1:10. At the intermediate sprint in Baga, Ciccone sprinted off and turned it into an attack, going clear to lead solo onto the final climb of the Coll de Pal, cut to 16.7km long at an average gradient of 6.7%.

At the intermediate sprint in Baga, Ciccone sprinted off and turned it into an attack, going clear to lead solo onto the final climb of the Coll de Pall. He, however, was caught 6km from the top, just as Vingegaard was effectively replacing him as the lone leader and, ultimately, the winner.