OFFICIAL Stage 5 Results
Laurens De Jong
Hello, Vuelta a España Gamers!
STAGE Grade: C
I rate today’s stage a C. Not all C grades are created equal. I do love the team time trial*. The sight of eight top notch cyclists tickling 60 km/h for almost half an hour, I can watch that all day. But it’s a time trial, and everyone did what they were supposed to do, even Harold Tejada lost only a minute and a half — we could have skipped this stage and still have a great Vuelta a España.
Route: 1/5 GC: 1/5 Tactics: 3/5 Sprint: 0/5 Surprises: 1/5
* Given how hard it was to calculate the points from a mid-race team time trial, I temporarily no longer love the team time trial format.
Salvador Dalí! I thought that knowing he hailed from Figueres was some obscure piece of knowledge I would just throw out there. Instead, the Dalí museum was front and center in today’s stage. Watch a bike race, learn about surrealism.
But okay, the stage itself was still a time trial. There’s just no good way to write about a time trial. I looked around and all my favorite journalists don’t do any better than myself. “Whatever UAE figured out in the process of reconning the course paid off” is exactly the kind of journalistic writing that doesn’t win Pulitzer prizes. And even the riders don’t know what to say. João Almeida: “Everybody was super strong. We had some surprises in a good way.” Yes, the team that wins the time trial was probably super strong.
I even watched Chris Horner’s analysis on YouTube. I like his analyses, but he spent twenty minutes today simply describing the race. He makes it sound like he’s providing valuable insight. “As we’re coming into the second time check for BORA-Hansgrohe they’re eleven seconds right now. So they got to still keep driving.”
Unlike all the other teams, who were freewheeling from the second checkpoint to the finish.
So nobody can write a decent article or podcast a decent analysis of a team time trial. Kind of like mixed doubles table tennis. It happens, it’s exciting and fun, but good luck writing about it.
What I want to do is write about Team Visma – Lease-a-Bike’s race. They were faster than UAE Team Emirates – XRG, and then they were in tenth place, and then they ended up in second place, just eight seconds back. Their last split was a fantastic performance — I think. But how can we tell? What did they do?
The riders are, again, no help. Matteo Jorgenson: “we thought the wind came from our back when it turned out it was a headwind.” That explains nothing!
What I did instead was amuse myself counting national champions on the various teams. There are a lot! Fifteen national time trial champions came to the 2025 Vuelta a España. And only six road race champions, by comparison. Moral of that story: if you’re a time trial champion, you can be a domestique. If you’re a road race champion, you’re either a one-day racer, a sprinter, or perhaps you’ve raced the Tour de France already — you’re not needed here in the Vuelta a España.
Both INEOS – Grenadiers and Lidl – Trek have three national champions: Egan Bernal, Filippo Ganna, and Bob Jungels for INEOS; Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier, Daan Hoole, and Mads Pedersen for Lidl.
But a shootout to lowly Burgos Burpellet BH, the small Spanish Pro team. They had two national champions! Sergio Chumil (Guatemala) and Eric Fagúndez (Uruguay).
A lot of colorful skinsuits on the roads today. I enjoyed this stage. Not all C grades are created equal.
Matteo Sobrero had a hard crash today. He’s our only-one-team-picked-him focus rider today, he’s on Team Josh*. Overlapping wheels, the number one thing to avoid. We teach you when you start racing. But okay, the wind came from across, you ride in an echelon, I’m not blaming Sobrero.
He smacked down hard, on his head. I do hope someone did a concussion protocol. Looking back on it, I find it hard to believe he passed a concussion protocol.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Four minutes after his crash, he was still sitting by the side of the road. “No, I’m fine,” you could hear him say. He looked beaten up, but not brain damaged.
The point is: four minutes had passed. Maybe more, we saw his crash in the replay, not in real-time. Four minutes since the replay. We couldn’t know it at the time, but the time limit was nine minutes.
Half of that he spent sitting on the asphalt. That’s the last time we saw him, and we didn’t see him finish. In the results his time is +3:46 behind his team. I don’t understand that. He spent at least four minutes not moving while his team, who was averaging 56.411 km/h, was pedaling away from him.
Are we expected to believe that concussion-ridden Sobrero rode 60 km/h all by himself to make up that time gap?
It’s a mystery. I’ve looked and found no explanation. Maybe we should just believe Sobrero is the fastest cyclist in the peloton, and congratulate Team Josh for picking him.
Watch the final kilometer HERE. (Listen to the expert commentary: “as the team goes under the flamme rouge with 1,000 meters remaining.” Team time trials, nobody knows how to report on them.)
Watch the official La Vuelta highlights HERE.
Watch the extended NBC Sports highlights HERE. (A whole half hour. Watch it because it’s fun, not because of the commentary.)
Read the TNT Sports report HERE.
What nobody talks about in these race reports and YouTube analyses is the nightmare that results from wanting to rank the riders individually. I won’t go into the details here, but that was a lot of work for very little points today. But fair is fair, I don’t want anyone to win or lose this game just because I was too lazy or incompetent to calculate points for a team time trial, my favorite* event.
Everyone was really close together. The top teams were at the top, and everyone picked riders from the top teams.
Spoiler alert: Team Ansel, Team Amalia and Team Will gained a spot in the standings, Team Grace and Team Liz lost a spot. Everyone else remained where they were.
Team Charles won the stage, by a single point. Most points from the stage, most points overall, tied for most riders in the Top-25 (ten). Behind them were Team Tadej who scored most points from classifications.
Four teams within four points: Team Hugo in third, Team Ansel and Team Josh tied in fourth, and Team Dominic in sixth.
The next four teams within seven points: Team Amalia in seventh, Team Sylvia in eighth, Team Will in ninth (and ten riders in the Top-25), Team Grace in tenth.
Team Sam finished eleventh, and Team Liz in twelfth and Team Samuel in thirteenth represented the arrière-garde, to add a little French.
Thursday’s stage is getting serious about the climbs. Two category 1 climbs, the second also the finish. To the ski resort of Pal (Andorra). It’s hard to imagine a different winner than Jonas Vingegaard.
Well, I take that back, I can imagine all kinds of riders winning. Giulio Ciccone, Felix Gall, Pablo Castrillo, why not. But this is a Vingegaard kind of stage, he wants to win the Vuelta, and only if he’s not as strong as he’s looked will we see someone else win it.
Going to be fun, though. The first climb, the Collada de Toses, I didn’t recognize. No wonder: it’s only been part of a Grand Tour once in my lifetime, in 2005. And the final climb, from La Massana to Pal, hasn’t been seen since 2010. Three times a Spaniard has won there, and once a Colombian. This time, a Dane?
Standings after stage 5:
|
Rank |
Name |
Points |
WAS |
MOVES |
|
1 |
Team Hugo* |
880 |
1 |
0 |
|
2 |
Team Charles* |
862 |
2 |
0 |
|
3 |
Team Ansel* |
830 |
4 |
1 |
|
Team Dominic* |
830 |
3 |
0 |
|
|
5 |
Team Samuel* |
788 |
5 |
0 |
|
6 |
Team Amalia* |
780 |
7 |
1 |
|
7 |
Team Grace* |
779 |
6 |
-1 |
|
8 |
Team Josh* |
773 |
8 |
0 |
|
9 |
Team Tadej* |
725 |
9 |
0 |
|
10 |
Team Sam* |
564 |
10 |
0 |
|
11 |
Team Will* |
532 |
12 |
1 |
|
12 |
Team Liz* |
523 |
11 |
-1 |
|
13 |
Team Sylvia* |
489 |
13 |
0 |
Standings after stage 5 (including adults):
|
Rank |
Name |
Points |
WAS |
MOVES |
|
1 |
Team Feng |
892 |
1 |
0 |
|
2 |
Team Corsa |
884 |
4 |
2 |
|
3 |
Team Hugo* |
880 |
2 |
-1 |
|
4 |
Team Kari |
871 |
3 |
-1 |
|
5 |
Team Craig |
869 |
7 |
2 |
|
6 |
Team Adam |
862 |
6 |
0 |
|
Team Charles* |
862 |
5 |
-1 |
|
|
8 |
Team Ansel* |
830 |
9 |
1 |
|
Team Dominic* |
830 |
8 |
0 |
|
|
10 |
Team Chuck |
800 |
11 |
1 |
|
11 |
Team Samuel* |
788 |
10 |
-1 |
|
12 |
Team Mitchinson |
786 |
16 |
4 |
|
13 |
Team Kent |
784 |
14 |
1 |
|
14 |
Team Amalia* |
780 |
13 |
-1 |
|
15 |
Team Grace* |
779 |
12 |
-3 |
|
16 |
Team Josh* |
773 |
15 |
-1 |
|
17 |
Team Laurens |
752 |
17 |
0 |
|
18 |
Team Joe |
738 |
18 |
0 |
|
19 |
Team Amelia |
729 |
20 |
1 |
|
20 |
Team Tadej* |
725 |
22 |
2 |
|
21 |
Team Rob |
714 |
20 |
-1 |
|
22 |
Team John |
708 |
19 |
-3 |
|
23 |
Team Wes |
696 |
23 |
0 |
|
24 |
Team Corey |
683 |
25 |
1 |
|
25 |
Team Jonwaine |
653 |
24 |
-1 |
|
26 |
Team Julie |
632 |
25 |
-1 |
|
27 |
Team Sam* |
564 |
28 |
1 |
|
28 |
Team Doug |
560 |
27 |
-1 |
|
29 |
Team JB |
547 |
29 |
0 |
|
30 |
Team Will* |
532 |
31 |
1 |
|
31 |
Team Liz* |
523 |
30 |
-1 |
|
32 |
Team Sylvia* |
489 |
32 |
0 |
|
33 |
Team Kate |
247 |
33 |
0 |
Complete breakdown of points from stage 5:
|
Name |
STAGE RESULTS |
PINK JERSEY |
PURPLE JERSEY |
BLUE JERSEY |
WHITE JERSEY |
POINTS/CLASS |
TOTAL |
PREVIOUS |
CUM. TOTAL |
|
Team Amalia* |
74 |
43 |
6 |
1 |
4 |
54 |
128 |
652 |
780 |
|
Team Ansel* |
79 |
41 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
58 |
137 |
693 |
830 |
|
Team Charles* |
85 |
43 |
11 |
1 |
9 |
64 |
149 |
713 |
862 |
|
Team Dominic* |
75 |
39 |
11 |
1 |
9 |
60 |
135 |
695 |
830 |
|
Team Grace* |
65 |
45 |
6 |
1 |
5 |
57 |
122 |
657 |
779 |
|
Team Hugo* |
76 |
46 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
63 |
139 |
741 |
880 |
|
Team Josh* |
79 |
41 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
58 |
137 |
636 |
773 |
|
Team Liz* |
68 |
28 |
6 |
1 |
5 |
40 |
108 |
415 |
523 |
|
Team Sam* |
71 |
31 |
9 |
1 |
5 |
46 |
117 |
447 |
564 |
|
Team Samuel* |
56 |
30 |
13 |
1 |
0 |
44 |
100 |
688 |
788 |
|
Team Sylvia* |
78 |
42 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
49 |
127 |
362 |
489 |
|
Team Tadej* |
82 |
42 |
11 |
1 |
12 |
66 |
148 |
577 |
725 |
|
Team Will* |
81 |
35 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
42 |
123 |
409 |
532 |
Complete breakdown of points from stage 5 (including adults):
|
88 |
51 |
6 |
1 |
9 |
67 |
155 |
707 |
862 |
|
|
Team Amalia* |
74 |
43 |
6 |
1 |
4 |
54 |
128 |
652 |
780 |
|
Team Amelia |
80 |
40 |
11 |
1 |
9 |
61 |
141 |
588 |
729 |
|
Team Ansel* |
79 |
41 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
58 |
137 |
693 |
830 |
|
Team Charles* |
85 |
43 |
11 |
1 |
9 |
64 |
149 |
713 |
862 |
|
Team Chuck |
77 |
42 |
9 |
1 |
9 |
61 |
138 |
662 |
800 |
|
Team Corey |
87 |
48 |
3 |
1 |
7 |
59 |
146 |
537 |
683 |
|
Team Corsa |
100 |
52 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
69 |
169 |
715 |
884 |
|
Team Craig |
101 |
50 |
11 |
1 |
10 |
72 |
173 |
696 |
869 |
|
Team Dominic* |
75 |
39 |
11 |
1 |
9 |
60 |
135 |
695 |
830 |
|
Team Doug |
63 |
22 |
9 |
1 |
0 |
32 |
95 |
465 |
560 |
|
Team Feng |
76 |
41 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
58 |
134 |
758 |
892 |
|
Team Grace* |
65 |
45 |
6 |
1 |
5 |
57 |
122 |
657 |
779 |
|
Team Hugo* |
76 |
46 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
63 |
139 |
741 |
880 |
|
Team JB |
77 |
38 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
42 |
119 |
428 |
547 |
|
Team Joe |
84 |
40 |
11 |
1 |
0 |
52 |
136 |
602 |
738 |
|
Team John |
67 |
32 |
13 |
1 |
5 |
51 |
118 |
590 |
708 |
|
Team Jonwaine |
53 |
27 |
9 |
1 |
5 |
42 |
95 |
558 |
653 |
|
Team Josh* |
79 |
41 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
58 |
137 |
636 |
773 |
|
Team Julie |
56 |
25 |
13 |
1 |
0 |
39 |
95 |
537 |
632 |
|
Team Kari |
86 |
43 |
11 |
5 |
10 |
69 |
155 |
716 |
871 |
|
Team Kate |
28 |
7 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
11 |
39 |
208 |
247 |
|
Team Kent |
72 |
39 |
11 |
1 |
10 |
61 |
133 |
651 |
784 |
|
Team Laurens |
76 |
40 |
11 |
1 |
9 |
61 |
137 |
615 |
752 |
|
Team Liz* |
68 |
28 |
6 |
1 |
5 |
40 |
108 |
415 |
523 |
|
Team Mitchinson |
106 |
47 |
11 |
1 |
5 |
64 |
170 |
616 |
786 |
|
Team Rob |
70 |
38 |
11 |
1 |
6 |
56 |
126 |
588 |
714 |
|
Team Sam* |
71 |
31 |
9 |
1 |
5 |
46 |
117 |
447 |
564 |
|
Team Samuel* |
56 |
30 |
13 |
1 |
0 |
44 |
100 |
688 |
788 |
|
Team Sylvia* |
78 |
42 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
49 |
127 |
362 |
489 |
|
Team Tadej* |
82 |
42 |
11 |
1 |
12 |
66 |
148 |
577 |
725 |
|
Team Wes |
81 |
38 |
6 |
1 |
5 |
50 |
131 |
565 |
696 |
|
Team Will* |
81 |
35 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
42 |
123 |
409 |
532 |
-Laurens.