Rui Costa sweeps up stage 5 win and overall at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana

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A late attack by Rui Costa (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) netted the Portuguese rider both the final stage and the overall victory of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.

The former World Champion made his move in the final two kilometres in a short, punishing stage 5, pushing clear with Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) of a break of nine containing all the main favourites and race leader Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo).

Intermarché-Circus-Wanty have now accumulated an impressive six wins at the start of this season, including three in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.

“I’m very happy I could do this, I had a great change of team and they believed in me from the start,” Costa, previously at UAE Team Emirates before joining his current squad, observed afterwards.

“Things have started well, but I never expected I could do this well. I suffered on a mid-race climb, but I could get through it and across to the lead group on the drop down afterwards.

“To be honest I never thought the break would stay away. But I played my last card and thanks to that, I got the stage win and the overall. Amazing!”

Ciccone, who won stage 3, finished second overall. Stage 4 winner Geoghegan Hart completed the podium.

How it unfolded

A warm, sunny day greeted the Valenciana peloton for the final 93km stage of the very hilly five-day race, with Ciccone nursing a minimal four-second lead over second-placed Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) and a further three riders at less than 10 seconds. Costa, meanwhile, was 14 seconds back.

A predictably ultra-fast start saw three riders, Alessandro de Marchi (Jayco-AIUIa), Samuele Battistella (Astana Qazaqstan), Davide Gabburo (Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) rapidly build up an advantage over two minutes at the foot of the second category Oronet, the first of the day’s two categorized climbs.

Over the Oronet and on the sweeping descent that followed, a stalemate ensued. But the first category ascent of La Frontera, just five kilometres long but with pitches of up to 17% proved to be a very different story.

Bora-Hansgrohe laid down a ferocious pace at its base, and the peloton shattered completely, with eight riders going clear.  Ciccone, Geoghegan Hart and Ineos Grenadiers teammate Thymen Arensman, were followed by defending Valenciana champion Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), Marc Soler and Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates). A little later Costa moved ahead, with Battistella hanging on from the early break.

Their gap of 30 seconds seemed precarious as they sped over the summit of La Frontera and onto the flatlands leading back into Valencia and the finish. But eventually, it proved sufficient to keep them clear of a peloton of some 20 riders, in no small part thanks to Arensman burying himself to keep the move clear.

On the one intermediate sprint of the stage with 8 kilometres to go, the ever-speedy Bilbao managed to snatch a first place and three-second time bonus ahead of Geoghegan Hart and Ciccone, making a GC that was already hanging in the balance even less certain.

However, when Arensman attacked with 2.5km to go, it was Costa who responded, The two powered around the final corner into the city centre of Valencia just a few metres ahead of the remnants of the break, with Geoghegan Hart being unlucky enough to be involved in a crash behind.

Meanwhile, Arensman did his utmost to keep ahead, but Costa’s final lunge for the line netted the Portuguese veteran both the stage and his first GC victory since the Abu Dhabi Tour back in 2017. 

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