Gree-Tour of Guangxi 2025 Stage 5

October 18, 2025 Up to this point, the only separation among the GC riders has been bonus sprints which Jhonatan Narváez of UAE-XRG has expertly taken advantage of. All of that should change today because the race to Nongla is billed for the climbers with a finish atop Nongla Summit in the natural scenic area. Leading to Nongla, the race is pretty straightforward. It's almost a direct shot South from the start in Yizhou for the first 110KM before turning West in Qiaoxian to take on the first KOM which is 2.7KM at 4.6%. There are a few more uncategorized climbs on the way to the intermediate bonus sprint with 24KM to go. Once in Guling, the final climb to Nongla begins. The climb is 3.2KM at 7.3% but the damage will be done late because the last 1,200M averages nearly 15%. Last year was a battle with a handful of riders all the way to line but the winner on the stage went out the winner of the overall and we could expect the same this year. There were four riders up the road on another hot and humid day in South East Asia. The group included Tom Paquot of Intermarché-Wanty, Mathias Norsgaard of Movistar, Haoyu Su of XDS-Astana, and Ryan Gibbons of Lidl-Trek. With 41KM to go, they had 2 minutes 15 seconds on the peloton with UAE-XRG and Decathlon AG2R doing the work. The gap got out to 2 minutes 45 seconds and more teams were forced to come to the front. Jayco AlUla and Arkéa-B&B Hotels added riders but with 14KM to go, the gap was still 2 minutes. GC trains formed and forced forward with 7KM to go which pushed the pace higher and higher. The race into the bottom of the climb was fierce and when the peloton swung right, the gap was down to 55 seconds to the break. Unfortunately for Decathlon AG2R, one of their leaders, Aurélien Paret-Peintre, crashed and was out of contention. As expected, UAE-XRG set the pace in the bunch. The camera was all over the place so we didn't see the attacks but with around 3KM remaining, a group got away with Paul Double of Jayco AlUla, Mikkel Honoré of EF-Education EasyPost, and Ben Zwiehoff of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe. Su was the last rider from the break to be caught as the three attackers went passed. Zwiehoff wasn't taking pulls but they still managed to build about 7 seconds on the rest of the peloton by the time they reached the steep gradients with 1,500M to go. Double attacked again on the steepest section and was clear. Double kept spinning a high cadence and powered up the last 500M with no one in camera shot behind. The camera did not pick it up but Victor Lafay of Decathlon AG2R had attacked from the favorites and just got up to Honoré by the finish line to take second place on the stage, 9 seconds down on Double. Honoré's strong, late-season form got him up into third on the stage. With the bonus seconds from the win plus the time gaps on the line, Double now leads the GC by 15 seconds to Lafay and 16 seconds to Narváez who finished sixth on the stage at 11 seconds. Honoré jumped to fourth overall, 19 seconds down.