Vuelta a Espana: Meersman wins stage 5 in Lugo

Gianni Meersman (Etixx-QuickStep) claimed his second stage of the Vuelta a Espana in a crash marred finale in Lugo. He was set up perfectly by his team and the Belgian finished it off beating Fabio Felline (Trek-Segafredo) and Kevin Reza (FDJ) in the tricky uphill run to the line.

Etixx-QuickStep moved to the front of a very reduced bunch inside the final kilometre with Zdenek Stybar. The Czech rider peeled off on the final corner, leaving Meersman with a little more than 100 metres to the line. On his wheel was Felline, who tried to come around Meersman but didn't have the finishing speed to make it work.

"I was extremely happy with the first victory and it gave me a lot of confidence," Meersman said of his stage win on Sunday. "I started today with zero stress, everything was good but the leadout that Stybar did was incredible, and then I saw the sign for 200 and I knew that if I didn't start then the other guys would come from behind.

"I would rather do my own sprint and then they pass me then get boxed in. In the end, they didn't pass me. It was quite nervous, I think that some places behind me there was a crash. I hope the guys that crashed are OK."

It was a chaotic finish on a narrow, twisting stretch of road as the teams battled for the position on the front. As the peloton chased down a late attack from Philippe Gilbert (BMC) and Simon Clarke (Cannondale-Drapac), several riders went down in multiple incidents. One of the victims was Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNl-Jumbo), who had already lost time earlier in the week. It was quickly apparent that Kruisjwijk's race was over and he could be seen receiving medical attention on the side of the road.

Many more riders were caught by a second crash in the final kilometre, which, on the narrow roads, blocked a large portion of the peloton. The crash very nearly caught out Chris Froome, who only just avoided hitting the tarmac. Race leader Darwin Atapuma lost more than a minute in the finale but the three kilometre rule was applied, meaning that the Colombian could stay in red for at least another day.

How it happened

After days of scorching heat, the some much needed rain fell on the race in Viveiro. The rain would make for a much more subdued start to the day as most of the teams thought about the potential sprint finish 171km down the road in Lugo. Darwin Atapuma swapped the black and red of BMC for the red of the race leader after claiming it from a breakaway in Tuesday.

The chances of a breakaway succeeding on stage 5 seemed much more unlikely with only two riders given the green card to go off the front. Katusha missed the two previous successful breaks and they made sure to put themselves out front with Tiago Machado. He took Julien Morice (Direct Energie) when he attacked almost as soon as the flag dropped.

With Machado just under nine minutes down on the overall classification, Atapuma and BMC would be keen to keep the pair under control. When the gap reached five minutes, they decided that it was enough and refused to let it grow out much further. As the rain cleared and the sun emerged from behind the clouds, Machado decided that Morice was holding him back and he pushed on and dropped the Frenchman.

Morice did little to fight it and he was eventually reeled back in by the peloton with 57km remaining. Now on his own, Machado was able to increase the buffer and the peloton behind but it was merely delaying the inevitable. The peloton held the Portuguese rider at around five minutes until a battle for the few king of the mountains points ensued. Machado had mopped up the full complement of three but there was still a few available.

Thomas de Gendt started the day second to Alexander Geniez in the competition, although he wore the classification jersey while Geniez wears the green points jersey. De Gendt's teammate Maxime Monfort led him out for the two points for second place, Geniez tried to follow him but it was Omar Fraile that claimed the final point. Geniez still holds the lead in that competition but his advantage has been brought down to just two points.

The action in the peloton quickly cut down Machado's lead and with 40 kilometres to go he had just three minutes on the bunch and his day would be done with just over 14 kilometres to the finish. With the break caught so early, the fight for position was fraught in the final kilometres as Team Sky, Tinkoff, Lotto-Soudal and Etixx-QuickStep all pushing hard at the front.

Simon Clarke decide that he did not want it to end in a bunch gallop and the Australian went with just over two kilometres to go, but he had Philippe Gilbert on his tail. In the chaotic finish, Kruijswijk's Vuelta a Espana went from bad to worse as he crashed at the side of the road. Information following the race indicated that a pole was the cause of the incident. Another crash just moments later held up most of the peloton, with less than 20 competing at the finish line.

Meersman was in prime place and avoided any of the trouble behind with his teammate Stybar setting him up perfectly for the run to the line.

"In the breakaway there was just two guys but still Machado was going really fast," Stybar said after the stage. "You could see that the bunch was lined out for most of the time and for maybe the last 60km Martin Velits was also pulling very hard. Then we closed it to just over a minute and it was getting really chaotic with all the turns and there were some crashes. We managed and it was a strong sprint and we can celebrate again."

There was some confusion in terms of the general classification, with Valverde seeming to move into the overall lead but that was quickly contradicted with Atapuma stepping onto the podium to take the red jersey.

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