Basque Country stage 5 | Seixas proves he is the best again as Lipowitz attacks fall short

Paul Seixas today won the fifth stage of the Tour of the Basque Country. The Frenchman from Decathlon CMA CGM claimed his third stage victory by beating Florian Lipowitz in a sprint. The German put the race leader under pressure early on, but Seixas did not flinch and subsequently dispatched his rival with ease in Eibar.

It has been the Paul Seixas show in northern Spain so far. The young Frenchman won the first two stages with authority and also showed his strength in the stages where the breakaway prevailed. With the final two gruelling mountain stages looming, the question was: would he allow the breakaway, and his rivals, to play games?

Stage five was by far the toughest stage of the week, with 4,000 metres of climbing through the Basque Country. The course lent itself well to breakaway riders, and they duly hoped en masse to put one over on the race leader. Nearly 40 riders rode clear at the start of the day, including plenty of familiar names: Alex Aranburu (Cofidis) was among them again, a day after his stage victory.

He was joined by a host of strong riders: Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Andreas Kron (Uno-X Mobility), Kévin Vauquelin (INEOS Grenadiers), Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon CMA CGM), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Christian Scaroni (XDS Astana). Visma | Lease a Bike were also well represented, with three compatriots: Tijmen Graat, Menno Huising and Steven Kruijswijk were all in the leading group.

Kruijswijk clearly had excellent legs. He managed to ride away solo and was later joined by born attacker Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarché). The pair built up a healthy lead, but in the peloton Bahrain Victorious took up the reins. They had missed the breakaway and were forced to work hard.

Their tempo whittled down the peloton significantly. With 70 kilometres to go, only 25 riders remained in the group. Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe soon took matters into their own hands: Florian Lipowitz accelerated, but Seixas was glued to his wheel. The race was on! At that point Kruijswijk's lights went out, and he had to let his breakaway companion go.

The favourites caught the breakaway riders at a rapid pace. Vauquelin had by now caught Veistroffer and was still putting up a fight. It was a golden situation for Seixas. He found teammate Prodhomme at the front and could calmly bide his time until the right moment. The pace dropped again, and the remaining favourites were able to return.

The race tore apart again on the descent, but a real war had yet to break out as the group came back together somewhat. Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) and Ben Tulett (Visma | Lease a Bike) had missed the split.

Vauquelin was caught, and in the valley Soler and Healy managed to ride away from the favourites. Thanks to the hard work of Prodhomme, they were never far away. They started the finale with the Trabakua, after which the road would never truly be flat again.

Healy was the last survivor, but Seixas moved to the front with 30 kilometres to go and rode past the Irishman. It was not a splitting attack, but a stranglehold from the French star. Lipowitz, Roglic and Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) were able to follow. Lipowitz was even able to attack: the best climbers in the race were back at the front, but Roglic was not far behind.

He was, however, overtaken by a very strong-climbing Javier Romo. The Spaniard from Movistar managed to bridge the gap to the leaders, but right at the crucial moment, he rode into Lipowitz's rear wheel and crashed. He had to chase in the descent, but was unable to return. Roglic, meanwhile, did manage to get back to the Spaniard.

It was a waiting game for the final climb, but it was not particularly steep. Seixas did the bulk of the work, as Roglic was still behind Lipowitz. He got no closer: the Frenchman kept the tempo high, and it was not the terrain for an acceleration. Seixas took the mountain points and with them reclaimed the mountains jersey to go with his leaders one. Now he could prepare to battle for the stage win.

Seixas and Lipowitz approached the finish town of Eibar. The German rarely took a turn, but the race leader seemed perfectly fine with that. Roglic and company were caught by the chasers, but they could not close the gap to the two leaders. Lipowitz then launched a very long sprint, but Seixas was able to match the acceleration and claim his third victory. Romo finished impressively — and deservedly — in third.