Take2 weeks ago
Stage 5 is billed as a sprinters' day, but the Alto de Paüls — 4 km at 7%, landing 25 km from the line — is close enough to shatter the pure sprinters and far enough to reset the race entirely. This isn't a flat stage with a bump; it's a puncher's stage with a sprint finish as the consolation prize.
On a 173 km stage from Falset to Roquetes, there is only one categorised climb — yet prevailing tactical read says flat-out fast men are already the wrong bet. Riders like Kaden Groves, who can absorb difficult finales and still produce a sprint, hold a structural edge over conventional sprinters who will be shed on the Paüls. Team Visma-Lease a Bike, with Matthew Brennan as lead sprinter and Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte as insurance, arrives with the deepest toolkit for exactly this ambiguity. Coastal wind in the Ebro valley could fracture the peloton even before the climb, making the final selection more brutal than the gradient alone suggests.
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