Tour d'Andorra
Stage 5
Welcome to the final stage of the Tour d’Andorra, and the race’s Queen Stage. Based on a circuit around Andorra la Vella, the peleton will tackle 9 categorised climbs before having a climb to the finish. This looks like hell on paper… especially if you are not a climber!
A group of 10 riders formed the day’s break, with some big names amongst them:
Chamorro (1st in KoM / +10’02 on GC)
Bagot (+ 20’35 on GC)
Duarte (+ 8’13 on GC)
Malacarne (+ 39.16 on GC)
Cuasquer (+ 26’07 on GC)
Lövkvist (+ 5’49 on GC)
Anguilet (+ 44’12 on GC)
Hirt (+ 20’25 on GC)
Pardilla (+ 22’13 on GC)
Moyano (+ 37’08 on GC)
Not a good sign for those wanting to come in ahead of the timelimit. Not even halfway up the first climb and already a small grupetto is forming… going to be long day for some.
At the KoM sprints, it was service as usual for
Chamorro. He would have some challenge from the others, but with
Slagter not present, it would be an easy jersey to confirm as his own.
Despite the break having over 5 minutes of advantage over the first couple of climbs, some riders wanted to see if they could bridge to them. It would be guys from the break on Stage 1, with
Shirota,
Cardoso and
Waeytens all going off the front. Maybe it was for the KoM points, but with 10 up the road, there was nothing on offer.
Another KoM sprint and another points haul for Chamorro. The question now would be by how many points will he take the jersey!
With every climb, the numbers able to respond to Chamorro’s attacks and follow the pace dropped off considerably. Just one circuit down, two to go and the break was now in pieces.
On the climb back to the finish for the second time, the break swelled to 9 riders again. Only one missing was
Moyano.
Back in to the peleton, it was UBS and
Amador who set the pace. By this time, the break had over 7 minutes’ advance, and UBS looked very comfortable. Shirota was the first of the chase group to be pulled back.
More attacks on the climbs from Chamorro, and one circuit to go and the break was down to just the KoM leader,
Duarte,
Lövkvist and
Hirt. Everyone was spread across the gap between the lead group and the main peleton.
Another day struggling to turn the pedals for
Marquez. After a strong start to the race, the crash on stage 3 had really left some underlying injuries.
As the leaders crossed the line again for the final time before the finish of the race, Chamorro’s latest attack for the KoM points gave him a huge lead on the road. Hirt was the first to crack, followed by Lövkvist and then Duarte. Chamorro was looking good for maybe taking the stage today.
Onto the final climb, and Duarte had closed the gap to Chamorro off the front. At this point, they had 13 minutes’ advantage over the favourite’s group, and 3 minutes over Lövkvist behind them. If things stayed as they were, the first three on the road were the virtual Overall podium…
Finally, some action in the favourite’s group!
Valls makes the move first, and is followed by
Monsalve. Will this bring Amador out from behind his domestiques to pull back the large gap to the lead riders. It was like no one had told him that the GC victory was at stake!
Back to the front of the race, and the Chamorro/Duarte pair were approaching the line… Who would have enough left for the win?
VICTORY CHAMORRO! What a way to wrap up the stage! He takes the KoM Classification by over 100 points, takes home the U25 classification and also a stage win. Duarte should be proud with his 2nd place, and now time would tell if he has done enough to take the GC victory. He needs a gap of more than 2’30” to Lövkvist and over 8 minutes to Amador…
Lövkvist crossed the line for 3rd place on the stage, and is 2’38” behind Chamorro. Duarte is above him on GC, but it is a long wait for the group containing Amador to arrive. Meanwhile,
Bagot crosses the line a minute after the World B Champion for 4th on the stage.
With the TV cameras focussing on the action at the front, they miss the attacks behind. Valls and Monsalve are both pulled back, before the Weisenhof rider goes again. This time, he takes
Denifl and Amador with him, whilst all the other favourites are spread out trying to react behind.
In the sprint to the line, Amador does enough to take 5th, with Monsalve and Denifl stuck to his wheel. And the time gap… 6’51”! The Costa Rican holds Yellow by 26 seconds from Denifl and 1’14” to Duarte, who does enough today to take 3rd Overall. No one would have seen that a few stages ago!
The other GC favourites come in in small groups, with
Machado in 9th (+ 7’18 on the day) behind Jan Hirt, and
Anguilet takes a nice Top 10 finish on the day.
Intxausti (11th), Valls (14th) and
Brajkovic (16th) come home together, and do enough to hold Top 10s on GC.
28 riders would come in outside of the day's timelimit, with
George Atkins the last of those, at over 2 hours down on stage winner Chamorro.
And so,
Andrei Amador is the 2016 Tour d’Andorra winner. He also takes the Points Classification with 85 points.
Juan Ernesto Chamorro takes home the KoM Jersey (163 points), as well as the U25 Classification by a comfortable margin. The best team is
Novatek-Panarmenian.net.
