Crashes, chaos and heavy rain - João Almeida wins Itzulia Basque Country and final queen stage after battle with Enric Mas
CyclingSaturday, 12 April 2025 at 17:43
The boss of Itzulia Basque Country. João Almeida has won the Basque race, the biggest win of his career, as he sealed the overall classification today in Eibar. He attacked, defended himself from other attacks, and beat Enric Mas in the final sprint to also take his second stage win of the week.
The final and queen stage of the race would always be a tough challenge for everyone at the start, but the battle for the breakaway wasn't actually so difficult. This is because the peloton allowed for around 20 riders to go up the road, without any major GC threats, but with plenty quality riders.
As had happened days prior, Bruno Armirail attacked from that front group and rode alone in front for long kilometers, but a group containing Ben Healy, Daniel Martínez, Ion Izagirre, Warren Barguil, Marc Hirschi, Jordan Jegat, Callum Scotson and Juan Guillermo Martínez. Up until the climb to Izua the group collaborated relatively well, but on the ascent itself the pace of UAE Team Emirates - XRG was so high that most were caught. Florian Lipowitz needed a bike-change mid-climb, but with UAE already on the front, it meant that the race would be split to bits very quickly.
Ben Healy would cross the climb in front, whilst João Almeida, Enric Mas and Mattias Skjelmose distanced the rest in the peloton and had Jordan Jegat follow them. In the descent and flat section that followed Skjelmose and Almeida had a total of three teammates join the group which helped keep the pace high, but the chasing groups also maintained high speed which meant the gaps remained rather stable.
Healy would later be caught and on the final categorized climb he, Mas and Almeida went clear with Mattias Skjelmose who would crash on the descent. Isaac del Toro joined the group again, but on the final 500-meter long climb Mas' pace was very high and only Almeida kept up. In the final sprint between the two under heavy raining conditions, Almeida was the strongest and managed to beat Mas to win for the second time this week. Ben Healy was third.
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5 Comments
So, in the end Martin got real time on the line and actually drop a place in the GC.
the spirit of the 3km rule is to save riders that are afected by crashes or mechanicals when these events are not their fault.
Some cases where the rider is to "blame" are, for pragmatical reasons, i guess, also covered by the rule.
But when you are on the attack in a rolling terrain and you crash, alone, it doesn't make much sense to apply the rule, even if you are in the last km.
It's completely different from the situation where there's a big crash in the bunch in the last kms and you get stuck behind fallen riders, for example.
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