Kaden Groves was not satisfied: after his victory the day before, he was again the strongest in the sprint in Burriana on Wednesday to win the 5th stage of the Tour of Spain cycling.
Well taken, the sprinter of the Alpecin-Deceuninck formation beat the Italian Filippo Ganna, after one more day in red for Remco Evenepoel.
Not content with keeping his leadership tunic two days after having seized it, the Belgian even consolidated his lead: he surprised the rest of the favorites by winning the intermediate sprint located 11 km from the finish, to pocket six bonus seconds, ahead of Kaden Groves, warming up for the final sprint.
About ten kilometers further, the 24-year-old Australian did not weaken, well deposited by the train of Alpecin, already impressive of control on the Tour de France.
If he had won by returning like a cannonball to the Colombian Sebastian Molano the day before in Tarragona, Groves this time took control of the sprint and resisted well the return of the roller of Ineos Filippo Ganna, second .
Groves thus consolidates his green jersey, with 60 points more than his runner-up.
“It was another special, stressful final (…) the team was very strong, we suffered a fall but we still had a lot of teammates, fortunately, there was our pilot fish,” he said. -he reacted after the race.
The end of the race was marked by a fall just over 3 km from the finish, involving in particular the sprinter of the Lotto-Dstny Milan Menten.
Before that, the Uruguayan Eric Fagundez was the only one to try to take off: he spent the day in front, never counting more than 5 min 30 sec ahead of the vanguard of the peloton.
The rider from the Burgos-BH formation was first caught by the best climber of this Vuelta, the Argentinian Eduardo Sepulveda, who went to seek five additional points at the top of the only difficulty of the day (2nd category), before the two men are picked up by the peloton.
The start of the stage was complicated for the Jayco-AlUla formation, deprived of its leader Eddie Dunbar, forced to retire after a fall during the fictitious start, and the Italian Filippo Zana, suffering from back pain. stomach.
Thursday, the program promises to be much tougher, with a final at Pico del Buitre (1st category), after 183 km of hilly terrain.
Evenepoel will try to keep his overall leader’s jersey on this 10.9 km climb at an 8% average, punctuated by numerous passages at 15 or 16%.
