Skoda Tour de Luxembourg 2024 Stage 5

September 22, 2024 The GC is finely poised to be a showdown on this last stage. There are a number of riders still in contention to take the overall with a rolling course and a difficult final circuit. Early in the race, many of the GC favorites were away in a group together off the front but in the end, Johannes Staune-Mittet of Visma-Lease a Bike, Archie Ryan of EF-Education EasyPost and Lorenzo Milesi of Movistar formed the main break of the day. With 60KM to go, they had a gap of 2 minutes and were being controlled by Lidl-Trek. Lidl-Trek drove the pace in the peloton quite hard and entered the 2.5 laps of the local circuit with 28KM to go, only 55 seconds behind the break. UAE put in a full lead out up the final climb of the circuit with 25KM to go. Marc Hirschi put in a little dig but a large group remained and he backed off. The momentary lull allowed Alex Kirsch of Lidl-Trek, Wilco Kelderman of Visma-Lease Bike, Bob Jungles of the Luxembourg National Team, Pelayo Sánchez of Movistar, and Alexis Vuillermoz of TotalEnergies to get away but they were hauled back with 18.5KM to go. UAE played the same hand on the next lap with similar results. Ryan and Staune-Mittet were caught but the group was still quite large as they descended down and through the finish line for 1 lap to go. With 9KM to go, attacks started and Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck and UAE seemed to be marking each other out which allowed groups to chip off the front and go up the road. Antonio Tiberi of Bahrain-Victorious, David Gaudu of Groupama-FDJ, Jordan Jegat of TotalEnergies, and Quinn Simmons of Lidl-Trek found themselves with 20 seconds in the front with a chase group of six and another 20 seconds back to the peloton. The four leaders hit the final climb with 1.8KM to go. Tiberi had done all of the work to this point in order to take the GC lead while the others were thinking strictly of the stage. Gaudu attacked with the top in sight and had the legs to get a gap and hold it down the hill to the finish to take the stage win. Simmons led Jegat in for second and third with Tiberi finishing in fourth and the clock started ticking. In the peloton, van der Poel attacked half way up the climb and dropped everyone but Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek. Van der Poel crossed the line in sixth place, 26 seconds behind Tiberi. UAE tactics were questionable and it cost them as Ayuso and Hirschi dropped to fifth and sixth respectively in the GC. Tiberi had all the time he needed and took the GC win with 15 seconds to spare on van der Poel. Gaudu propelled himself up to third overall with his ride, just 16 seconds behind Tiberi to conclude a thrilling day of racing.