Girmay Wins Valencia Stage | Evenepoel Eyes Victory

The riders left for a 160 kilometer ride between Segorbe and Torreblanca. Four riders were soon given a safe conduct: the Luxembourgish Mats Wenzel (Kern Pharma), the British Adam Lewis (Cadence Cyclery), the Spaniard Diego Pablo Sevilla (Polti VisitMalta) and the Dutchman Danny van der Tuuk (Euskaltel-Euskadi), who was neutralized as a Pole. The latter took the mountain jersey by being the first to reach the top of the Puerto Los Madronos, a third category slope of 4.5km at an average of 4%.

It was there that Olympic champion Evenepoel allowed his teammates from Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe to move on. They came over the top with about twenty people. Mads Pedersen, among others, was not among them. The Dane from Lidl-Trek later did not participate for a stage win due to a crash. He immediately stepped off course.

However, the breakaway did not go very far – although Evenepoel did take a bonus second during an intermediate sprint – because the peloton rejoined in the straight line to the finish. In the meantime, Giulio Pellizzari – a teammate of Evenepoel – had gone on the attack. The Italian climber went full throttle and created a lead of about 20 seconds.

NSN (Biniam Girmay), INEOS Grenadiers (Ben Turner) and Uno-X Mobility (Carl-Frederik Bévort) gave chase, with success. Pellizzari was caught with 2 kilometers to go and so the expected sprint happened after all. Girmay was just the strongest, his first victory for NSN and suddenly the first victory for the successor to Israel-Premier Tech. Red Bul sprinter Arne Marit was half a wheel short and finished second, ahead of Giovani Lonardi and even Aleksandr Vlasov. So two Red Bull in the top four. Bévort rounded out the top five.

Boniseconde

Evenepoel finished – just like Cian Uijtdebroeks – in the peloton, 31st. He is the clear favorite for the individual time trial on Thursday. It runs over 17 kilometers from Carlet to Alginet, with an ascending stretch of three kilometers halfway.

“Movistar went fast and then I saw that there was only a small group left,” said the bus afterwards. “We then took control of the descent and tried to get a bonus second. We succeeded. How important is that? Not very important, because the classification is not going to come down to a second. It is more so that we can start later in the day. They give rain in the morning, so the course will be dry by the time I start. That second was there, so why not?”