Tour de Suisse 2025 Stage 5

June 19, 2025 Today's race stays entirely in Switzerland but hugs the Italian border as the route takes the riders West from La Punt to Santa Maria in Calanca across 184KM and nearly 3,900M of elevation. The first categorized climb comes after just 17KM of racing. The Julierpass is 7.3KM at 6.5% but after that, there is 48KM of downhill to Thusis where the riders retrace their steps from yesterday. They climb up to Sufers and then Splügen but instead of turning South up the Splügenpass, they continue West and uphill, eventually hitting the Passo Del San Bernardino (7.5KM at 6%). The top of the San Bernardino is 66KM from the finish and from that point, it is almost all downhill until 26KM to go when the finale begins with the climb to Castaneda. The climb is 4.5KM long and almost 10% average. If it wasn't hard enough, the organizers decided to make a circuit back around to ride up the Castaneda once again, this time finishing another 2KM up the mountain in the village of Santa Maria in Calanca. A break of around 15 riders got away early but with the Julierpass coming so close the start, the group was reduced to five riders by the top. Halfway up the Passo Del San Bernardino with 70KM to go, the lead group containing Pello Bilbao of Bahrain Victorious, Neilson Powless of EF-Education EasyPost, Javier Romo of Movistar, Lorenzo Fortunato of XDS-Astana, and Aleksandr Vlasov of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe had 3 minutes 30 seconds. UAE-XRG were starting to ramp the pace up which put the peloton into single file. Vlasov led the break over the top of the San Bernardino with just 2 minutes 10 seconds. The descent flattened out with 38KM to go. The gap was still 2 minutes but UAE-XRG were showing more intent to make the remainder of the day as hard as possible. There was no interest in the Tissot Sprints because the break was simply trying to preserve some advantage going into the first ascent of Castaneda. The five leaders had 1 minute 20 seconds as they swung right onto the narrow road up to Castaneda. Mikkel Bjerg of UAE-XRG took up the work in the peloton to keep his leader, João Almeida, near the front because the road continued to narrow as they entered the first of around twenty switchbacks. When Bjerg pulled off, there were only around 30 riders left. Decathlon AG2R took over and with 2KM to climb, they were 45 seconds behind Vlasov who had gotten a gap over Powless and Bilbao, the two closest on the road. With 800M to climb, the favorites were all isolated and the group was down to around 10 riders. They were just under 30 seconds behind Powless, Vlasov, and Bilbao who had regrouped, and 90 seconds ahead of race leader Romain Grégoire of Groupama-FDJ who had lost the virtual lead of the race by this point. Vlasov led Bilbao over the top with 21KM to go as Powless was dropped and stuck in the middle with the peloton about 15 seconds behind. Powless did a marvelous descent and made it back to the front at the bottom through the town of Roveredo. The break were caught with 9KM to go by the favorites group that had swollen to over 25 riders. Movistar was pulling along with Arkéa-B&B Hotels and UAE-XRG. The favorites group started the climb with 6.1KM to go and the first one of the main contenders to drop was Ben O'Connor of Jayco AlUla who started the day in fourth overall. Decathlon AG2R really set out their plan and made the climb hard from the bottom. With 4.8KM to go, Callum Scotson was setting the pace for Felix Gall with Kévin Vauquelin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, João Almeida of UAE-XRG, Matthew Riccitello of Israel-Premier Tech, Julian Alaphilippe of Tudor Pro Cycling, and Oscar Onley of Picnic-PostNL hanging on. Almeida was dropped when Alaphilippe went on the attack with around 4KM to go. Onley came across on the steepest slopes and went off alone about 1KM later. Almeida got a second wind and came back to Gall, Vauquelin, and Alaphilippe with Riccitello dangling off the back. With 2.5KM to go, there were no groups. Every rider was on their own because the only way to make it up such a steep climb was the ride your own pace. Almeida managed to winch himself back to Onley with 2.2KM to go and immediately went to the front. The leading pair went over the classified section of Castaneda together but they still had nearly 2KM to the finish. Almeida and Onley swapped turns the entire way up to the village of Santa Maria in Calanca. With 200M to go, Onley started his sprint and came around Almeida. He looked to have it easily but Almeida made a run back on him and they each threw for the line. It was impossible to tell with any confidence who took the win in real time. When it came to the photo, Onley hit the line first for the win with Almeida mere centimeters behind. Gall was next best in third at 23 seconds with Vauquelin in fourth at 57 seconds. The top three in GC is now incredibly tight. Vauquelin leads Almeida by 29 seconds and Alaphilippe by 39 seconds. Onley jumped to fourth overall at 1 minute 21 seconds and it is all still to play for with two realistic GC days remaining on the weekend.