The 5th stage of the Tour of Spain is the prey of Pavel Bittner. Stefan Küng surprises in fifth place at the sprint finish in Seville.
21.08.2024, 18:34
21.08.2024, 18:41
SDA
After the climbing finale the day before, a showdown of the sprinters was expected in the largest city in the Andalusia region, as the organizers had not included a single mountain classification on the 177 km through the hot south of Spain.
Quite a few had expected another duel between Kaden Groves and Wout van Aert, but the sprint winners of the 2nd and 3rd stages respectively were surprised by the young Czech Pavel Bittner. The 21-year-old from the Dutch team dsm-firmenich put up a tough fight with Van Aert and ultimately also benefited from the fact that the Belgian had to tiger jump twice in his biggest career victory to date.
Küng in the mix at the front
Van Aert could at least console himself with having defended the green points jersey by finishing second in the stage. While Australian Groves was disappointed in third place, Stefan Küng caused a surprise with 5th place. The rider from Thurgau is not known for being at the front in bunch sprints. Mauro Schmid, the second Swiss participant, finished in 144th place.
The red leader's jersey remains on the shoulders of Primoz Roglic. The Slovenian, who had taken the lead in the overall classification with his stage win on Tuesday at the first mountain top finish, reached the finish in the peloton.
Second mountain finish on Thursday
After the flat stage, the first Vuelta week will come to an end with more mountains. Thursday's stage 6, which leads over 185.5 km and four categorized climbs from Jerez de la Frontera to Yunquera, is the second mountain arrival on the programme. However, the almost 9 km long final climb with an average gradient of 3.9 percent is not very demanding.
