Volta a Catalunya: Kämna scores victory on stage 5

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Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe) won stage 5 of the Volta a Catalunya with a late solo attack from a group of 41 riders that were given a day of freedom on the hilly ride to Manresa near Barcelona. Ruben Guerreiro (EF Education-Nippo) finished 39 seconds behind the young German, with Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel) third at 42 seconds and the rest of the attack coming in just behind in groups and individually after a fast day of racing.  

Ineos Grenadiers were happy to let the 41 riders fight for the stage glory and carefully controlled their overall rivals in the peloton. Adam Yates finished 2:00 behind Kämna but kept his race lead with the weekend stages to come. Teammates Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas are still second and third at 45 and 49 seconds respectively.

Their nearest threat is Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) in fourth place at 1:03.

How it unfolded

The 201.1km stage was another day in the mountains, taking the Volta a Catalunya from the foot of the Pyrennes to Manresa in hills behind Barcelona with the Porte de Montserrat a nasty late climb in the final 40km. 

Ineos Grenadiers have taken control of the race over the last few days and so a breakaway seemed the logical outcome for the stage while the British team controlled their overall rivals. Fausto Masnada (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was the first to create a move but he was surprisingly pulled back, as were subsequent other attacks. Over the top of the Coll de Comiols with 160km to race, the peloton was all together. 

The first decisive attack came on the descent with Cavagna and Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) using their descending skills and nerve to go clear. They were soon joined by Thymen Arensman (Team DSM) and Ide Schelling (Bora-Hansgrohe). The four opened a 30-second gap and then a split in the peloton set off the alarm bells for a moment and shaped the stage.

Ineos were not in the move as a 40-rider group went clear but they seemed happy with that and stayed calm and collected, knowing that their closest GC rivals were not in the big group. The speed was high, with an average of 46km/h for the first half of the race. The four attackers lead the Ineos peloton by 4:00 with the big group trying individually and collectively to go across to the quartet. A ten-rider chase group eventually formed up front, with Mohoric, Cavagna, Arensman, Schelling, De la Cruz, Jungels, Valter, Goldstein, Soler, Knox in there.

The peloton was at 3:45 with Ineos apparently not too concerned and sitting lined out on the front. Jungels, Valter, De la Cruz lead the 10-man lead group through the intermediate sprint with 60km to go. Then on the rolling roads near Manresa before the loop to the Montserrat climb Cavagna decided to shake-up the 10-rider group. He channeled his time trialing skills and took off alone. The Frenchman quickly opened a 45-second gap and then pushed it out to 1:40 as the  Port de Montserrat loomed. 

The peloton was at 4:45 as some riders from the chase group were dropped and swept up. The Port de Montserrat hurt Cavagna as expected but he fought the gradient and made it to the summit just ahead of Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel) and Sebastian Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ). However, on the rolling plateau the race shuffled again with other riders joining the trio up front. 

The fast descent saw attacks from Carlos Verona (Movistar), Knox and Kruijswijk but they were brought to heel on the fast road back to Manresa. Verona, Uran, Gesbert, and Kruijswijk tried another move but were caught in a tactical battle and war of nerves in the break.

Kemna was next to try a solo attack with 12km to go as the road descended towards Manresa. He got a gap as the others failed to work together to chase him and didn’t look back, using his time trial skills to stay away. Other riders tried solo moves in pursuit but they were pulled back.

That only helped Kemna carve out a lead and he dived through some final corners to push out his lead to over 30 seconds. It was enough for him to finally take a stage win at the Volta a Catalunya after several failed attempts.