Tirreno-Adriatico: Michael Valgren breaks away for first win in five years as Isaac del Toro takes back race lead on stage 5

Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost) sealed victory on stage 5 of Tirreno-Adriatico, after forming part of the day's early break and slowly whittling down his rivals, and then holding off a charging Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) in the final kilometres.

Though the chasing pair couldn't quite catch Valgren and go for the win, instead finishing 11 seconds down, Del Toro's second place after attacking in the finale sees him grab the race lead.

The Mexican retakes the blue jersey from Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who couldn't match the pace on the final climb. He ended the day in sixth, 30 seconds down.

After an eight-man group went away in the first 40km of the hilly stage in Marche, Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) and Valgren were the final survivors and aggressors, attacking in the final 25km to go away as a pair.

Valgren then dropped Alaphilippe to push on solo with 6km to go, and despite the GC battle kicking off behind and taking only 15 seconds into the final kilometre, the Dane held on to take a big victory in Mombaroccio, his first since 2021.

"It's unbelievable. We all worked so hard for this," Valgren said at the finish. "I had a really good winter at home with all my family and they supported me, and then the team supported me. I just had a baby one month ago, so this is for them and for the team. For me it's just… I'm speechless.

"It was a really hard start, a lot of attacks, and then I bridged across and we worked really well together. In the end, I thought I had really good legs all day actually so I wanted to make an early attack and Julian came with me and we worked well together. Then in the end, it was such a hard day, pushing all day, but I just had amazing legs and the luck."

Del Toro took 19 seconds on Pellizzari in the end, which, in addition to six bonus seconds, put him back into the blue jersey by a margin of 23 seconds. Jorgenson also benefited on GC, climbing up one spot to third, only 34 seconds down on Del Toro with two stages left to come.

How it unfolded

It was another up-and-down day in Italy with a hilly finishing circuit on the cards. The peloton would tackle 3,800 metres of climbing on the 184km road from Marotta-Mondolfo to Mombaroccio, while four classified climbs filled the route – one ascent of the Monte delle Cesane (7.8km at 6.5) and three of the Monte delle Mattera (6.5km at 5%) on the circuit.

There was a fairly fierce battle to be in the breakaway, but eventually after 30km, a group formed, made up of Edward Planckaert (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Jack Haig (Ineos Grenadiers), Sjoerd Bax (Pinarello-Q36.5), Sean Flynn (Picnic-PostNL), and Joan Bou (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA).

They quickly got a small gap, but a few stragglers chased to get across, and five soon became eight 10km later as Flynn was dropped, but Valgren, Alaphilippe, Georg Zimmermann (Lotto-Intermarché), and Emiel Verstrynge (Alpecin-Premier Tech) made the junction. With the breakaway formed after 40km, they built up a strong advantage, approaching five minutes at points as Bou claimed the KOM points over the first climb.

Into the final 60km and the trio of final climbs, the pace in the peloton did start to build and the gap fell, as riders like Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) slipped back on the first ascent. In the peloton, UAE Team Emirates-XRG took on a lot of the pace-setting.

Bou was the first breakaway rider to struggle on the Monte della Mattera as the Alpecin duo pushed the pace. A crash on the descent of the Mattera saw a bit of a split in the bunch, which came back together.

However, things didn't settle for long as UAE pushed the tempo on even the uncategorised rises to stretch and thin out the bunch in support of Del Toro. This put riders like Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) in trouble, whilst Matteo Jorgenson was already isolated with 35km to go.

With 30km to go, the leaders – now down to six after losing Sjoerd – held a gap of 2:25 over the reduced group of favourites, which had swelled a bit with riders like Tiberi making it back on and Del Toro, Pellizzari and Jorgenson still all there.

The next climb up to Santuario Beato Sante was immediately costly to the break, with Planckaert dropped almost immediately and the group attacking each other, with Valgren and Alaphilippe going clear. The pair went over the top of the climb with a slender 15-second gap, but the peloton was eating into their advantage.

Onto the final 20km loop, the reduced bunch was 1:50 down on the leaders with UAE still doing much of the work. On the next uncategorised rise, Tiberi was dropped once and for all as the group of favourites shrank further yet.

Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) kicked off the attacks from the GC favourites with 15km to go, but he couldn't quite get a group away. In the final 10km, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe settled into trying to chase down the leaders, and it was touch and go whether there was enough road left to make the catch.

On the final ascent of the Santuario Beato Sante climb, Valgren pretty quickly dispatched Alaphilippe to go solo in the lead, but the GC action also kicked off on the climb, which ate into his advantage.

Del Toro accelerated to draw out a GC group of just eight riders, but Valgren was still 50 seconds clear with 3km to go. The Dane's teammate Richard Carapaz tried to attack the favourites but didn't get far.

With just over 2km to go, Del Toro launched a big move which Jorgenson could just about follow, as leader Pellizzari struggled to limit the gap behind. Valgren crested the climb just 20 seconds ahead of Del Toro and Jorgenson, who were now motivated to fight for the stage win as well as GC gains.

However, despite having him in their sights, there was not quite enough road for the pair to catch Valgren, who soloed to victory 11 seconds clear of the chasers, marking his first since a series of setbacks over the last few years.

Results

Results powered by FirstCycling