Magnificent Mads Pedersen perfect in pink again at the 2025 Giro d'Italia, sealing a hat-trick of wins on stage 5

Stage 5 of the 2025 Giro d'Italia has gone to the Maglia Rosa Mads Pedersen. In a brutal finale, the Dane secured his third win in five stages with a powerful final sprint.

The trio of Giosuè Epis (Arkéa - B&B Hotels), Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar Team) and stage winner at the 2023 Giro d'Italia Davide Bais (Team Polti VisitMalta) formed the breakaway of the day. Clearly though, the peloton was not in a giving mood, holding the attackers on a tight leash throughout the day, never really allowing the breakaway much leeway.

Behind the three leaders, Mads Pedersen led home the peloton at the first intermediate sprint of the day, boosting his lead in the Maglia Ciclamino classification in the process. Pedersen also took maximum points behind the break at the second sprint of the day, although he was made to work hard for it by Alpecin-Deceuninck's Jenson Plowright.

With just over 40km to go, things started to split up in the break as Bais attacked his companions. Whilst Milesi worked hard to get back on the wheel of his compatriot, Epis let the wheel go and dropped back to the peloton.

As soon as the climbing began inside the final 30km, the back door of the peloton quickly opened, with sprinters such as stage 4 winner Casper van Uden, Milan Fretin, Sam Bennett, Matteo Moschetti and Olav Kooij immediately starting to struggle. Mads Pedersen also found himself right at the back of the peloton by the summit of the cat 4 Montescaglioso.

With UAE Team Emirates - XRG keeping a fierce pace after the climb, there were some notable splits in the peloton, with some big-name riders caught out behind including Wout van Aert and Antonio Tiberi. Thankfully for those however, the splits were mostly undone by the time the peloton hit the final 20km of the day. These accelerations though, had brought Bais and Milesi right back into sight, just around 30 seconds up the road. With just over 13km to go, both of them were caught.

At just over 4km to go, Van Aert dropped away fully, living up to his pre-stage promise of not being capable of fighting for the stage win. Because of there being no 3km banner of safety for the GC riders, the fight for positioning was rampant at the start of the final climb with Primoz Roglic himself going to the front at just over 2km to go. Although Mathias Vacek then took over the pace-setting, his team leader Mads Pedersen was beginning to drop back through the bunch.

By the final kilometre though, Pedersen was back into perfect position and onto Vacek's back wheel. In a three way battle for the stage win, Pedersen, Edoardo Zambanini and Tom Pidcock went the distance in the sprint. Eventually though, the powerful Pedersen proved strongest once again.