Anacona the winner in Vuelta a San Juan stage 5

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Winner Anacona (Movistar) took the stage 5 win atop Alto Colorado on Friday at the Vuelta a San Juan, out-sprinting Medellin riders Cesar Parades and Cristian Montoya at the line and taking the overall race lead from Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep).

Anacona and Parades got away from the reduced peloton on the lower slopes of the final climb, sweeping up early breakaway rider Montoya as they climbed to the finish. The two Medellin riders tried to out-maneuver Anacona in the closing kilometre, but the Movistar rider fought off their attacks to take the stage win.

Further down the road, Alaphilippe and his Deceuninck-QuickStep teammate Remco Evenepoel were busy countering more Movistar attacks from Richard Carapaz and from Medellin's Oscar Sevilla, the defending champion. The pair got away with Mexico's Efren Santos and eventually finished fourth and fifth, respectively, 32 seconds behind the leaders. Alaphilippe finished outside the top 10, almost  a minute down, but held onto second place overall at 41 seconds from Anacona.

Sevilla moved up into third place, now 57 seconds behind the leader.

How it unfolded

Following a rest day on Thursday, the Queen stage at the Vuelta a San Juan featured a 169.5km route from San Martín to Alto Colorado. The day featured two intermediate sprints in Angaco at 30.7km and Talacasto at 87.8km.

The four KOMs on tap animated much of the action ahead of the finish. The first climb, the category 3 ascent of Alto de Villicum, came at 63.4km. The second KOM, the category 3 climb up Banos de Talacasto, followed at 107.1km. KOM 3 came at 121.8km at Alto de la Crucecita. The final KOM points will be offered at the finish line on Alto Colorado, a 19km climb that averages a gentle 4 per cent but includes some sections of 8 per cent.

A breakaway of 15 riders eventually coalesced and got the action rolling when they escaped the bunch early in the day.

In the move were Matúš Štocek and Ottavio Dotti from Beltrami TSA-Hopplà-Petroli Firenze, Nelson Soto of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Damiano Cima of Nippo Vini Fantini Faizanè, Giovanni Pedretti (Biesse Carrera), Gerardo Tivani (Municipalidad de Pocito), Adrián Richeze (Agrupacion Virgen De Fatima), Cristian Montoya (Medellin), Facundo Cattapán, Iginio Lucero and Kevin Castro of Municipalidad de Rawson, Orlando Garibay (Mexico), and Maximiliano Navarrete, Jose Martinez and Victor Arroyo of the Argentina national team.

The leaders had five minutes on the bunch by the time they reached the first sprint in Angaco, where Navarrete beat Soto to the line and Richeze claimed third. The gap went up to nearly eight minutes by the time Lucero claimed maximum points at the first KOM on Alto de Villicum.

The gap hovered around seven minutes when Navarrete claimed the final intermediate sprint of the day in Talacasto with 81.7km to go. With the second KOM less than 20km away, Cattapán attacked and opened a gap, scoring top points on the climb and then soldiering on alone, with the next KOM less than 15km away.

Cattapán claimed the third KOM with 43 seconds on the rest of the breakaway and 6:15 on the bunch. But he immediately started fading back from there and was soon back in the breakaway for the descent down to the base of Alto Colorado.

Lotto Soudal, QuickStep and Movistar began driving the pace in the peloton on the exposed road leading to the climb, causing a split in the peloton with about two-thirds of the riders in the front group and the remaining third a few hundred metres behind clawing their way back.

Up the road in the breakaway, the leaders' advantage was chopped to three minutes with 30km to go, and Cattapán pulled the pin on his day's effort, slowly fading back to the bunch. Movistar took control of the peloton as it bunched back together near the bottom of the long final climb.

With the road starting the gradual tilt up Alto Colorado to the finish, Montoya, Garibay and Tivani separated from the rest of the breakaway and set off in search of stage glory. Tivani soon lost their pace, leaving Montoya and Garibay alone on the front.

The peloton also started to break up under pressure from Movistar. An attack came from Anacona and Parades as they closed within 1:30 of the leaders with about 12km remaining.

The Movistar attacks sent QuickStep to the front of the peloton to protect Alaphilippe's lead. Anacona and Parades started sweeping up the remnants of the break and were quickly within a minute of Montoya and Garibay, and 45 seconds ahead of the peloton.

Movistar continued to press the issue with Anacona 45 second up the road and in the virtual lead. Carapaz jumped out of the QuickStep-led chase and blew up that group, with Alaphilippe struggling to hold the wheels. Defending champion Sevilla jumped up to the small Carapaz group, and the games were officially on.

At the head of the race with 7km remaining, Montoya dropped Garibay, while Anacona and Parades closed to win 16 seconds of the leader. Alaphilippe, sitting on Evenepoel's wheel at the head of the peloton, lingered more than a minute behind.

Anacona and Parades caught Montoya with 4.3km remaining, forming a lead group of three that had 35 seconds on Carapaz, Sevilla and Mexico's Santos. The peloton was another half a minute back.

Alaphilippe attacked with 2km to go, countered quickly by Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Quintana's brother Dayer (Neri Sottoli-Selle Italia-KTM). The trio dangled in front of the peloton as Dayer Quintana launched several attacks, which Alaphilippe was left to chase down.

The lead trio now had 45 seconds over Carapaz, Sevilla and Santos, while the vastly reduced peloton was still a minute back.

Anacona pressed the pace up front, hoping to ride into the overall lead, while the two Medellin riders with him waited to pounce at the finish. But it didn't pan out for them, as Anacona was too strong and held them off at the line.

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