Tour of the Alps 2025 Stage 5

April 25, 2025 It's a short but spicy finale to the Tour of the Alps 2025. The stage is only 112KM starting and finishing in Lienz, Austria but there is 2,400M of elevation and a few difficult climbs for the riders to navigate. The climb of the Bannberg is 4.8KM long at over 9% and is taken on twice, the first time at 40KM into the stage and second time with just 32KM to go. The last climb of the Stronach is cruel, 3KM at 12% with just 9KM to go before the finish. Race leader Thymen Arensman of Ineos will have his work cut out to fend off Michael Storer of Tudor Pro Cycling who is just 11 seconds behind on GC and the Stronach could be the decider of the entire race. The tulips were popping in the Lienz town square but there was not a lot of sun at the start. It was dry however and that would certainly be welcomed by many after the cool and wet conditions of the previous days. The break took a while to go and it was a large one that went. 14 riders were away and they had 3 minutes 20 seconds with 54KM to go as they were descending to Abfaltersbach and the valley road toward the Bannberg. Ineos were doing a good job for Arensman in keeping the race in a more traditional and controlled pattern. The break started the Bannberg with 37KM to go and a 3 minute advantage on the peloton. Paul Seixas of Decathlon AG2R set the pace from the bottom and riders started to drop out the back. In the peloton, Tudor Pro Cycling hit the bottom like a sprint lead out. Larry Warbasse did a massive pull and by the time he swung off, only his teammates Florian Stork and Storer were there along with Arensman. When Stork took his final pedal rev, Storer attacked and there was no reaction from Arensman. Arensman did not give up though and set his pace to control the gap. Storer went over the top about 25 seconds ahead of Arensman with the peloton completely out of the game. Eight riders from the original break made it together to the start of the Stronach climb, including Koen Bouwman of Jayco AlUla, Manuele Tarozzi of VF-Group Bardiani CSF-Faizanè, Paul Seixas and Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon AG2R, Emil Herzog and Ben Zwiehoff of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Mattia Bais of Polti-VisitMalta, and Jakob Fuglsang of Israel-Premier Tech. They had a lead of 2 minutes which would be enough for one of them to take the stage win. Seixas took up the pace with 2KM to go and a gap started to open, meter by meter. Prodhomme bridged up to Seixas with 1KM to climb and the teammates went over the top with a good gap on the rest of the break. The descended quickly and by the finish line, they had plenty of time to decide who would take the stage. Prodhomme led through the final corner and he would be the one to take the victory, the first win of his career. Herzog finished 30 seconds later for third place. In the GC race, Lucas Eriksson of Tudor Pro Cycling, who had been in the original break, dropped back for Storer on the valley road. He paced Storer for over 10KM, all the way to the bottom of the climb, and added over 45 seconds the gap on Arensman. Storer continued his dominant form and put more time into the Dutchman and crossed the line 1 minute 20 seconds after Prodhomme but, more importantly, had taken the GC lead by brute force. Arensman came in 1 minute 44 seconds later. For the final GC, Michael Storer went out the winner by a margin of 1 minute 33 seconds to Thymen Arensman. Derek Gee of Israel-Premier Tech held his third place overall and finished the week 4 minutes 7 seconds down on Storer.