Results Tour of Slovakia 2026 Stage 5 - Lennert van Eetvelt nails down overall victory with statement win on brutal mountain finish
CyclingSunday, 20 September 2026 at 14:08
Lennert van Eetvelt defended his Tour of Slovakia lead from the front, winning stage of the race and the overall classification after enduring repeated attacks from rivals on a Sunday mountain-top finish.
The final stage of the Tour of Slovakia finishes on a high, with the Kral'ova Hol'a mountain top finish ensuring the general classification fight would be decided on its slopes - averaging 8.6 percent over 12.9 kilometers.
Before that, 133 kilometers from Sliac lied in wait for the bunch. An early move of over 20 riders saw the likes of Paul Magnier get away, but the race came back together with 86 kilometers to go.
Soudal-Quick-Step soon took the initiative for the day, with Cerial Desal and Warre Vangheluwe the brave riders to establish a breakaway that stuck. Vangheluwe attacked soon after the race came back together before Desal managed to bridge across and form a duo with 66 kilometers to go.
The teammates were given quite a bit of rope, building a gap as high as two minutes with 40 kilometers to go. However, the final climb still seemed set to decide the general classification.
Lotto-Intermarche's Lennart van Eetvelt held the leader's jersey at the beginning of the day, but by the slimmest of margins. Just 17 seconds separated the first 34 riders, meaning that fireworks in the finale were guaranteed as contenders such as Henrique Bravo, Jamie Meehan, Maxime Decomble and Benjamin Thomas all loomed.
Lennert van Eetvelt led the race by a matter of seconds before stage 5
GC battle develops on final climb
As the race hit the climb, Desal was the lone survivor until he was caught by the group of favourites with 10 kilometers to go. With now less than 20 riders left in the remnants of the peloton, Van Eetvelt hit the front to deter attacks as Decomble was the first to launch a challenge.
Groupama FDJ would soon use Yann Dubois to pace fr Decomble as the group reduced further to arround ten riders with six kilometers to go. Bravo launched his attack with 6.6 kilometers to go, forcing Van Eetvelt to a reaction to keep things together.
The group would whittle down to a main quintet for a grand-stand finale as Van Eetvelt was joined by Bravo, Meehan, Decomble and Rainer Kepplinger, with Remi Daumas just behind in chase.
After a wave of attacks, Bravo, Van Eetvelt and Meehan seemed to leave Decomble and Kepplinger in their wake with just 4 kilometers to the finish. Groupama rider Decomble battled back well to re-join a kilometer later as Irishman Meehan now also joined in on the attacks.
Leader Van Eetvelt needed to be wary of bonus seconds as he held narrow margins over his rivals at the front, but marked most moves well as the pace continuously stopped and started at the front.
In the final kilometer, Bravo rolled the dice and put the Belgian under most pressure. Van Eetvelt launched the sprint to the line first, beating the Brazilian to cap off his Tour of Slovakia with two stage wins and the overall classification.
Results Tour of Slovakia 2026 Stage 5
Gavin QuinnCycling Journalist
Gavin Quinn is a cycling journalist and ultra-distance cyclist with a BA in Journalism from Dublin City University. Formerly the Press & Communications Officer for Cycling Ireland, Gavin has worked inside the national team at the World Championships and has reported for the Irish Mirror, Mirror UK, and The42.
His expertise is backed by elite-level access, having interviewed stars like Sam Bennett and Ben Healy, as well as immense personal endurance. In 2025, he completed a 12,000km solo cycle from Ireland to Vietnam, following a 4,600km tour across Europe. From the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix to the gradients of the Tourmalet, Gavin’s writing focuses on the "romance and brutality" of the sport. Having visited 50+ countries, he brings a global, cultural perspective to his coverage of the pro peloton for CyclingUpToDate.
claps 0visitors 0
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Are you watching stage 5
Rafionain-Glas20-09-2026 - Or automated translation. I suspect hub could be hubris though. I don’t know multilingualism is the reason but it’s really not hard at all to understand what is meant. Or perhaps I’ve gotten too used to reading automatic translations imposed by the likes of Google, Airbnb, Tripadvisor etc. for foreign messages and reviewsJumpyjohn20-09-2026
- If it’s hard for him, imagine how it must be for the others.Jumpyjohn20-09-2026
- And yet, without any research or knowledge you quite liberally assume whatever you feel like about the people you argue with (whilst, I notice, spouting off quite a bit about yourself that we have to assume is true for lack of any verification possibilities). Maybe you should reveal your own identity for us to check out your story? On the other hand, if taking part in a photo shoot (or even two) is given prominence by you, is it worth us looking at your CV?Jumpyjohn20-09-2026
- No Tom Dumoulin?
DareDevil20-09-2026 - Indeed, and it doesn’t even seem well correlated to age, some of the older viewers being way more modern than the newer generations.Jumpyjohn20-09-2026
- You are the only one who ever asks, try not to make things too obviousJumpyjohn20-09-2026
- Am surprised we are still discussing what MVDP might do instead of why he did what he did. Is he lacking form or was his approach planned in view of next weekend. He seemed ok on stage 1 and hasn’t seemed interested since. Or has he gotten ill?Jumpyjohn20-09-2026
- If it had gone through it would make it hard for them to complain about big budget teams as was done recentlyJumpyjohn20-09-2026
- I believe it is AI in the first placeRafionain-Glas20-09-2026
Loading
Write a comment