Crashes and a chaotic Valencia finale, as breakaway rider García Pierna proves strongest: Evenepoel takes overall victory

It had been quite a performance from Evenepoel on Saturday. The Belgian leader of Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe continued his strong form, and after the time trial he also won the queen stage — giving himself a sizeable cushion in the general classification. The final day was not especially tough on paper, meaning he mainly had to stay out of trouble on the way to the finish in Valencia.

In a stage of just 97 kilometres, there were still two tricky climbs — and a big, strong breakaway sensed an opportunity. A group of sixteen riders went up the road, including Adrià Pericas (UAE Team Emirates–XRG), Emil Herzog (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), Raúl García Pierna (Movistar) and stage 3 winner Andrew August (INEOS Grenadiers). Behind them, somewhat surprisingly, UAE Team Emirates–XRG themselves took control of the chase.

Once again, Danny van der Tuuk was at the front, as he had been throughout the week. The Dutch rider racing for Euskaltel–Euskadi (registered in Poland) started the day in the mountains jersey and only needed a few more points to make it safe. He took maximum points on the first climb of the day, then sat up and drifted back — job done. Up ahead, however, the pace exploded on the final climb, around 40 kilometres from the finish.

It was García Pierna who accelerated and split the lead group in two. August, Herzog and Pericas went with him, along with Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek), Jasper Schoofs (Soudal Quick-Step) and Diego Uriarte (Equipo Kern Pharma). With a little over a minute and a half on the peloton, the breakaway still had plenty to play for — and they lost little ground on the descent.

A flurry of attacks followed, and it was the young Herzog who briefly got away from his rivals. But Kim Heiduk had returned to the chasing group, giving INEOS Grenadiers two riders in the move — and they brought the German back. The front nine held firm against the bunch, where Burgos Burpellet BH took on much of the chasing responsibility. Still, they couldn’t make any real inroads.

August — already a stage winner this week — emptied himself for teammate Heiduk, but then crashed in a corner. The German was left on his own, and the peloton began to close. UAE Team Emirates–XRG didn’t trust Pericas’ position and upped the tempo. That move suddenly split the bunch in two, and a completely chaotic finale was on.

Evenepoel was attentive and made the split, but it was only a group of around 20 riders at first — and plenty more managed to fight back. As a result, the peloton rapidly came closer to the leaders. When Heiduk and Bernard crashed on a slippery corner, the chaos reached another level. It was set to be extremely tight, but the breakaway held on by the smallest margin. In the sprint, García Pierna took the win ahead of Herzog — who could still celebrate too, because his leader Evenepoel had secured the overall classification.