Volta Ciclista a Catalunya 2025 Stage 5

March 28, 2025 It doesn't get more sprinty in the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya than this. There are only 1,100M of climbing across the 166KM from Paüls to Amposta-Terres de l'Ebre and nearly all of it is completed in the first half of the stage. There are no sneaky hills or uphill sprints, just a flat run to a flat sprint. It was a beautifully sunny day with temperatures rising to nearly 20C (68F) by the finish but there was quite a bit if wind around. Seven riders got up the road into the break including Bruno Armirail of Decathlon AG2R, Michael Leonard of Ineos, Enzo Paleni of Groupama-FDJ, Jan Castellon of Caja Rural Seguros RGA, Mats Wenzel of Equipo Kern Pharma, and Márton Dina and Jokin Murguialday of Euskatel-Euskadi. They had just 1 minute 20 seconds with 87KM to go on a peloton that looked nervous for the possibilities of cross winds. Rider after rider were dropped from the break until it was just Paleni and Murguialday up front but they were dangling just 25 seconds ahead of the bunch. Through Amposta, the route swung directly into a head wind and the race slowed down considerably. Paleni attacked Murguialday and went clear with 45KM to go and built his lead to 1 minute 5 seconds. The speed in the bunch picked up when they left Tortosa with 37KM to go due to the change of wind direction as well as the upcoming Intermediate Sprint 10KM down the road in L'Aldea. Paleni did an amazing ride and was still away through the Intermediate Sprint which took the 3 bonus seconds away from the peloton. Nico Denz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe took 2 seconds but it was Juan Ayuso of UAE-XRG who took third in the sprint for 1 bonus second which moved him ahead of Primož Roglič to take the GC lead. Paleni was finally caught with 24KM to go but it was not going to be a procession into a sprint finish. Ineos and Visma-Lease a Bike had help from EF-Education EasyPost, Picnic-PostNL, and Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe to split the peloton in cross winds with 20KM to go. Juan Pedro López of Lidl-Trek, Lennert Van Eetvelt of Lotto, and Matthew Riccitello of Israel-Premier Tech were the GC contenders to have missed the split. Movistar had numbers in the front and pushed on to preserve the gap of around 15 seconds with 12KM to go. The gap extended to 40 seconds with 4KM to go and the stage win would come from the front group of around 35 riders. Richard Carapaz of EF-Education EasyPost led through the final kilometer to keep Marijn van den Berg in good position. Geraint Thomas of Ineos took over and carried Axel Laurance to 250M. Laurance started his sprint but Matthew Brennan of Visma-Lease a Bike got a run on the outside of a sweeping right corner and carried his speed for a convincing win, his second win of the week. Tibor Del Grosso of Alpecin-Deceuninck followed Brennan in the sprint and snagged a second place with Pavel Bittner of Picnic-PostNL taking third.