Julian Alaphilippe
of Deceuninck Quick Step took over the lead of the Tour Of Colombia with
victory on stage five.
His team mate Bob
Jungels had taken the lead of the race with victory on stage four and led the
riders out on a 177.2km-long
course around La Union with five classified climbs
Bob Jungels was in
the break with his team mate Julian Alaphilippe taking the first sprint. That
break had led by three minutes but it was down to a minute on the final lap.
On the 7.4km Alto
La Union climb, Alaphilippe attacked with Team Sky’s Ivan Sosa and was able to
get ten seconds clear before EF Education’s Daniel Martinez joined them,
leaving the Tour Of Britain winner, some fifteen seconds behind.
Into the final
kilometre and up came Alaphilippe, who put in a move with 300 metres left to
take the win in 4.16.44 ahead of Miguel Angel Lopez and Richard Carapaz.
Alaphilippe now
leads the race by eight second from Martinez and said: “I am very happy! Coming here, my
goal was to win a stage and I am delighted I could bring another one for the
team after those of Alvaro and Bob. It was a very hard day, but we knew it was
going to be like this, so that’s why I jumped in the breakaway, where we rode
full gas despite many having tired legs after what has been a tough week of
racing here.
Today, I
won with my head and heart after a great effort and I want to enjoy this
beautiful moment. I have a few seconds over the next riders in the standings,
but I’m not thinking of this now. We’ll see tomorrow what the race will bring
and how things will unfold.”
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