Vuelta a Burgos 2025 Stage 5

August 9, 2025 The race has been exciting so far and the GC is still tight with 15 riders inside of 1 minute to race leader Léo Bisiaux. Any one of the 15 riders has a reasonable chance at winning the overall on today's final stage from Quintana del Pidio to Lagunas de Neila. The route covers 138KM and goes up in steps. From the top of the 3KM, 5% climb of the Alto de Arroyo at 55KM to go, the road gradually rises through the intermediate sprint in Huerta de Abajo to the top of an unclassified climb with 29KM to go. Another short descent leads into the Alto de Rozavientos, a 3.3KM climb that averages nearly 10% and summits with 22KM to go. It is a very difficult climb but it is just the aperitivo. The final descent takes the riders into Quintanar de la Sierra for the final climb up to Lagunas de Neila. There are 13KM uphill to the finish but the official climb of 6.4KM is the hardest at just over 9%. Like yesterday, there was another fight for the break which took 25KM to establish. Five riders made the selection including Nico Denz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Mathijs Paasschens of Bahrain Victorious, Carlos García Pierna of Burgos-Burpellet BH, Txomin Juaristi of Euskatel-Euskadi, and Samuele Zoccarato of Polti-VisitMalta. The group had 3 minutes with 54KM to go with UAE-XRG and Lidl-Trek leading the peloton. The bunch was sitting in color order with UAE-XRG, Decathlon AG2R, Lidl-Trek, and Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe all across the road on the uncategorized climb after the intermediate sprint. The gap was down to 1 minute 40 seconds with 36KM to go and Denz put in an attack to get the group moving. They shed Zoccarato and increased the gap out to 2 minutes 20 seconds by the start of the penultimate climb to Alto de Rozavientos with 25KM to go. UAE-XRG rode from the bottom but it wasn't a full on pace which gave riders an opportunity to attack. James Shaw of EF-Education EasyPost was first to go but Afonso Eulálio of Bahrain Victorious went over the top and created a gap to the favorites group. The favorites group went over the top 55 seconds behind García Pierna, who took the points and secured the Mountains Classification, and Juaristi, the last two remaining from the early break. On the descent, García Pierna struggled through the corners and was dropped by Juaristi. He was caught by the rest of the original break as well as Eulálio who had bridged up and made contact. Also on the descent, Isaac del Toro of UAE-XRG, one of the pre-race favorites, had a puncture and was forced to do a bike change. He got going again but was over 30 seconds behind with 12KM to go through Quintanar de la Sierra. None of del Toro's teammates were around to help and the pace was not slowing. Decathlon AG2R and Lidl-Trek were piling on the pressure but del Toro came through the cars and was able to return with 10KM to go. Only Eulálio was still in front of the peloton with 5KM to go as the road got steep on the Lagunas de Neila. He held 20 seconds when the first attack came from the favorites group of Esteban Chaves of EF-Education EasyPost. The course turned to the left on to the smaller road to the top at 4KM to go and the gradient got really steep. Julien Bernard of Lidl-Trek hauled Chaves back at 3.5KM to go and when he pulled off 200M later, Jefferson Cepeda of Movistar attacked. Not being a GC threat, the others left him go but a few moments later, Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek came after him. All of the activity brought Eulálio back but it also put first and second overall, Léo Bisiaux of Decathlon AG2R and Giulio Pellizzari of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, into trouble. Del Toro and Ciccone were the only ones left at the front with 2.5KM to go. Ciccone was out of GC after stage 1 so he sat back and forced del Toro to set the pace to gain time on Bisiaux and Pellizzari. Lorenzo Fortunato of XDS-Astana, Egan Bernal of Ineos, Damien Howson of Q36.5, and Torstein Træen of Bahrain Victorious formed a chase group and were just 15 seconds behind through 1KM to go. Ciccone made his move with 850M to go with no reaction from del Toro. Ciccone never looked back and took the victory, his second in just a week. Del Toro crossed 10 seconds later with Fortunato in third at 27 seconds. The gap from del Toro to the rest of the GC contenders was more than enough to seal overall victory. Fortunato took second place at 19 seconds with Bisiaux fighting to the line to secure third overall at 25 seconds.