PREVIEW | Itzulia Basque Country 2024 stage 5 - Who will win the race after disastrous DNF's of Vingegaard, Roglic and Evenepoel?

Stage 5 of Itzulia Basque Country will be another very open stage but one where the overall classification will be even more wide open. After the abandon of Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel; and the crashes of Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose; who will be able to thrive in the middle of the chaos?

A flat start to the fifth day of racing at Itzulia Basque Country, the roads outside Vitoria-Gasteiz are certainly not tough and will allow for a calmer start to the day. Towards the half of the day this will chance with the climb to Urkiola which is 5.5 kilometers at 9%. However this will be too early to be meaningful for the result of the stage.

The stage will be decided in it's final section which features a two-lap circuit that features a climb. This is the ascent to Muniketagaina just outside Amorebieta. The climb is 3.4 kilometers at 7% with 11 switchbacks in it. You could barely find a more explosive ascent, attacks are certain and with only 13 kilometers to the finish there are certainly reasons for it.

The riders find a short descent and a slight ascent for a few kilometers before descending finally into town definitely for what could be a small group sprint, or the celebration of a solo victor after a rough day in the Basque hills.

The Weather

A sunny day with strong wind from the south. This will help breakaways go up the road early in the day as it's mostly a tailwind on flat roads. Urkiola will be climbed in a headwind but if anything, the final ascent will have a tailwind as well - with the finale being mixed. Let's see, any race scenario is backed up by the weather in some form, so ultimately the riders decide the outcome of the race.

The Favourites

Ultimately, the kind of racing should be virtually the same as was expected today. But the circumstances are very different... We've got Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel all out of the race and that is beyond a game changer. The race, which hadn't seen true climbing action yet, lost it's three main favourites and to be honest, several of the second-liners have already crashed as well and their legs weren't tested today. We can have a very open race actually.

The new race leader is Mattias Skjelmose, but the Dane crashed at the end of stage 3 and in second place is Juan Ayuso who... Also crashed on stage 3. The two riders love these kind of explosive stages but we do not know if they will have their best legs. Lidl-Trek will be the team in the lead however, UAE won't so they'll definitely want to use their numbers to make the difference - they are much more likely to be able to do so now. With Isaac Del Toro, Brandon McNulty and Marc Soler they will have this opportunity before the queen stage and can get ahead of the rest.

After today's stage was not raced competitively, and because the finale is so similar, I expected virtually the same. The GC fight will likely kick off and include also Kévin Vauquelin, Pello Bilbao, Ion Izagirre, Santiago Buitrago, Max Schachmann...

However the gaps begin to be quite big behind, I would say. Already for some of these riders who will mostly depend on the final day of racing. Already over 40 seconds behind Skjelmose are the likes of Mikel Landa, Jai Hindley, Carlos Rodríguez and Eddie Dunbar. These do have to attack if they feel they have the ambitions for a strong result.

The likes of Sepp Kuss, Felix Gall, Oscar Onley and if he happens to feel better, Tao Geoghegan Hart, are very strong climbers who can do something with their freedom on a day like this. But they are not likely to be in the day's breakaway. Honestly the amount of riders who can win on a day like this is quite big but I can make some sort of selection with riders like Quinten Hermans, Alex Aranburu, Paul Lapeira, Andrea Bagioli, Samuele Battistella, Gonzalo Serrano, Warren Barguil, Romain Grégoire, Clément Champoussin and Archie Ryan. A chaotic race so far, anything can happen honestly.

Prediction Itzulia Basque Country 2024 stage 5:

*** Samuele Battistella, Alex Aranburu
** Isaac Del Toro, Santiago Buitrago, Brandon McNulty
* Pello Bilbao, Ion Izagirre, Juan Ayuso, Mattias Skjelmose, Kévin Vauquelin, Mikel Landa, Jai Hindley, Quinten Hermans, Gonzalo Serrano, Warren Barguil, Romain Grégoire, Clément Champoussin

Pick: Samuele Battistella