Vuelta a San Juan: Najar wins stage 5

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Argentinean national champion Gonzalo Najar gave the local fans a thrill by taking out the queen stage of the Vuelta a San Juan for his home SEP de San Juan team on the Alto Colorado. The squad waged an audacious triple attack at the base of the final climb, launching Najar into a solo breakaway to score a provincial coup d'etat.

His advantage at the line was generous enough to put him into the overall race lead.

"I have to say thank you to all the people here along the roadside," Najar said in the post-race press conference. "In my mind I had quite a lot of things in the last kilometre. I felt a lot of support from the people, and thankfully this stage was like we planned in the morning."

That plan included launching multiple attacks to break one of the team's riders free with a solo move a long way out from the finish. The team executed the plan perfectly, launching Najar with 20km from the line and into a blistering tailwind that helped neutralise the chase.

"When we attacked the descent before the final climb, Lotto was starting to push hard and I saw that my legs were good," he said. "First my teammate Dotti tried and then it was my turn. I think I calculated perfectly my attack.

"I was here two or three times training, and then in the morning we woke up very early at six o'clock in the morning and our sports director showed us a video that motivated us a lot to try and surge the general classification today."

Najar, the Argentinean road champion, exhibited a unique finish line salute that he said reflected a nickname given to him by friends.

"One of my friends has a lot of birds as his home and at my home there are a lot of condors, and many of my friends say to me I am like Condor," he said.

Behind, Oscar Sevilla (Medellin-Inter) waged his own battle against the peloton, the pace of his team shattering the chasing group and then distancing overnight leader Filippo Ganna (UAE Team Emirates).

Sevilla's efforts were too late to claim the lead, as he finished 1:58 behind Najar, but he was still good enough for second on the stage. Rodolfo Torres (Androni-Giocattoli) was third.

"Najar attacked very far from the finish line, more or less 20km from the finish line and alone," Sevilla said. "And I felt it was difficult for him to arrive here at the finish alone and winning because in this kind of uphill where you can roll fast in a fast rhythm I thought we would catch him because we never stopped with our rhythm.

"First was Bora and then my team," Sevilla continued. "We were confident at 30-40 seconds we could do it. Then 10km from the finish line we broke the group. But the thing is, he was the strongest one today."

Najar leads the overall classification over Sevilla by 1:02, with Ganna third at 1:22. Najar said he hopes to make history on Sunday to be the first Argentinean winner of the reincarnated UCI race.

"I think every stage is going to be difficult from here to the finish," the 24-year-old said. "But I hope I can finish all these days in the best way possible and try to arrive to the last day doing history for Argentinean cycling."

How it unfolded

After a rest day on Thursday, the San Juan peloton was ready to tackle the queen stage with the summit finish on Alto Colorado. The 169.5km stage started in the tiny Village of San Martin and headed north through the high desert to the foothills of the Andes for the finish.

Outside of the stage 3 time trial, Alto Colorado was largely seen as the only other opportunity to gain or lose time in the overall classification. Heading into the stage Filippo Ganna (Team UAE Emirates) had a five-second gap on Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) and 11 seconds on Oscar Sevilla (Medellin).

The stage featured two sprints with time bonuses at 30.6km and 87.8km, and there were four classified climbs, including the final category 1 climb that topped out at 2,565 metres of elevation. The first ascent, the category 3 Alto de Villicum, came 63.4km into the day, followed by the category 2 climbs of Banos de Talascato at 107.1km and Alto de la Crucecita at 121.8km.

Adrian Richeze (A.C.A. Virgen De Fatima) won the first intermediate sprint of the day in Angaco, increasing his lead in the points classification to kick things off.

A breakaway soon emerged with Tanner Putt (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling), Pablo Andres Alarcon (Canel's-Specialized), Daniel Juarez (Asociacion Civil Mardan), Francisco Monte (Asociacion Civil Mardan), Sergio Aguirre (Municipalidad de Rawson), Adrian Alvarado (Chile), Tosh Van Der Sande (Lotto Soudal), Mauro Richeze (A.C.A. Virgen De Fatima), Mauricio Bielinski (Brazil) and Gerardo Tivani (Municipalidad de Pocito).

The fight for points in king of the mountains competition heated up as three of the top six made the breakaway. Alarcon started the day in the mountains jersey with 18 points, Juarez was second and Cano third, both with 17 points, while Tivani was sitting sixth with seven points.

Tivani took full points over the first climb of the day, the Alto de Villicum, while Juarez was second and Cano was third.

The breakaway proceeded to combine well, and gained over five minutes on the main field.

Mauro Richeze (A.C.A. Virgen De Fatima) took the points in the second intermediate sprint in Talascato at the midway point of the race, protecting teammate Adrian's lead from Juarez and Tivani in the points classification.

On the second climb, Baños de Talascato, Juarez got the better of Cano and Alarcon. But it was Cano who took full points over the third ascent ahead of Juarez and Alarcon some 15km later on Alto de la Crucecita.

The peloton picked up speed in pursuit of the breakaway causing splits in the field. They caught the breakaway with roughly 35km to go, but even as teams with strong climbers set up for the finale ahead of Alto Colorado, riders still attacked to try to gain time ahead of the climb.

Juan Pablo Dotti (S.E.P. de San Juan) launched an attack but that was quickly brought back. Najar, along with Jose Rodriguez, tried to go together shortly afterwards. They combined for a short time, before Rodriguez dropped off the back, setting up Najar by himself out front as they approached the exposed climb to the finish.

Behind, the peloton fragmented, with the Medellin-Inter squad doing most of the work to bring Najar back, while the overnight leader Ganna found himself fighting to hold the pace as the gradient began to bite.

With 5km to go, an acceleration by Medellin-Inter further reduced the leading group to just three riders, with Ganna again fighting alone to get back to the group. Once again it was stage 2 winner Romain Villalobos, Oscar Sevilla (Medellin-Inter) and Rodolfo Torres (Androni) leading the chase, with Najar in the distance ahead.

The trio's gap yawned with 3km to go, with Sevilla driving the pace as he tried to ride into the virtual race lead, but Najar was out of reach for the stage victory.

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