February 6, 2026
With yesterday's ITT being neutralized for the GC, time is running out for the favorites to make differences in the overall. Before the race started, today's 158KM stage from Orihuela to San Vincent Del Raspeig looked like one for a reduced sprint but now, some guys might need to make the race hard from far out. The first 95KM of the day is entirely flat as the race heads North right on the coast line towards Alicante. Once in the lively beach town however, the route turns inland to find the Alto de Tibi, a 7KM climb at 5%. There is a short descent into Tibi where the sprint point is for bonus seconds before the road rises again for about 5KM at 4%. The true descent back towards the finish near the coast starts with 24KM to go and the rest of the day is downhill or false flat down into San Vincent Del Raspeig. If raced hard enough, there could be selections made but it's hard to see any small GC groups staying away to the finish.
Race Summary
The first hour of racing covered over 50KM and no break had gone. With such a hard start, only the strong would make the break and in the end, eight riders got away but when live coverage began with 43KM to go, only five remained including Raúl García Pierna of Movistar, Danny van der Tuuk of Euskatel-Euskadi, Mattia Bais and Pablo García of Polti-VisitMalta, and Matteo Fabbro of Solution Tech Nippo Rali. The break were toiling up the Alto de Tibi but Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe were setting a hard pace behind at just under 2 minutes and closing.
At the top with 37KM to go, García Pierna took maximum points away from Mountains leader van der Tuuk but the main objective for García Pierna was not the points. He kept the effort going over the top with his eye on the Bonus seconds at the bottom in Tibi. The peloton crested about 1 minute behind and it looked like the majority of the sprinters had survived the climb. García Pierna took the seconds in Tibi as Bais made contact to form a lead group of two riders.
García Pierna and Bais were caught with 28KM to go and the question was what would Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe decide to do? They took their foot off the gas and riders started to attack. Brandon McNulty and João Almeida of UAE-XRG, Damiano Caruso of Bahrain Victorious, and Remco Evenepoel of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe all tried their hand at making a move. The first riders to get a gap were Florian Vermeersch of UAE-XRG and Andrew August of Ineos. They were joined by Ådne Holter of Uno-X Mobility near the bottom of the descent as well as Jonathan Vervenne of Soudal Quickstep a few kilometers later. With 15KM to go, all were taking pulls except for August who had his sprinter teammate Ben Turner sitting comfortably in the peloton.
The gap was about 20 seconds and NSN Cycling were doing the hard work of chasing for race leader Biniam Girmay. The gap remained around 20 seconds under 5KM to go and the run into the finish started to get more technical with numerous turns and roundabouts which only favored the break. NSN Cycling were just running out of men but they managed to close the front group down to just a few seconds as they swung on to the finishing straight. The leaders started to look at each other instead of riding and it was Vervenne who blinked first and attacked. The others were straight on him and patiently waited for the meters to tick down before starting their sprint. Behind in the bunch, Ineos and Uno-X Mobility were on the front but they were trying to slow things for August and Holter ahead. With just 200M to go, August got in the drops and started his sprint from fourth wheel. Vermeersch, who was leading, got a good head start and was in full sprint by the time August reached him but the young American had the fresher legs and held his speed to the line to take his first professional victory. Holter followed August into second place with Vermeersch and Vernenne in third and fourth respectively. Girmay led the peloton in 4 seconds later for fifth place, deomonstrating good early season form for the Eritrean.
With 6 bonus seconds for Holter on the line, he jumped to second overall, now tied with Girmay for the race lead with Vermeersch in third at 2 seconds.