Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) extended his lead in Tour de Suisse today with a dominant performance in stage 5, soloing to victory on the summit finish at Carì after being teed by an impressive stint of pace-making from his teammate João Almeida, who finished just five seconds down, while Egan Bernal (Ineos) won the battle for third place at 15 seconds ahead of Matthew Riccitello (Israel Premier Tech) and Enric Mas (Movistar).
A small group of riders containing Alexey Lutsenko, Stephen Williams, Einer Rubio, Nans Peters and Johannes Staune-Mittet marked the day’s first breakaway effort, with the quintet later opening up a modest advantage just under two and a half minutes over the peloton.
After being out front for most of the stage, the escapees were eventually swept up by the INEOS Grenadiers led peloton. However, once the break was caught, UAE Team Emirates came to the fore, immediately stringing things out and causing mass casualties behind.
But, once the pace settled, Riccitello and Matteo Badilatti went on the attack, with Riccitello later going solo. Yet, the young American was reeled back in with 6.7km still to go, with Almeida taking over the pace-setting with a fierce tempo that saw reigning Tour de Suisse champion Mattias Skjelmose and Team Visma | Lease a Bike duo of Wilco Kelderman and Cian Uijtdebroeks getting distanced from the group.
With the pace still on high, only Yates, Bernal, Riccitello and Mas were able to keep tempo with Almeida, with Yates launching his winning move with just under 2km to go.
Despite his rivals initially being put into difficulty both Bernal and Mas were able to get back to the wheel of Yates, but to no avail as both riders were soon dropped by the Briton as he raced towards the stage win.
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