CYCLING – TEAM Bahrain Victorious star Pello Bilbao continued his impressive form in the 65th Itzulia Basque Country in Spain yesterday after securing a top 10 finish in the fifth and penultimate stage of the race.
Bilbao crossed the finish line after 176.2 kilometres of racing in ninth place – a minute and 11 seconds behind Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM Team, who won the leg in four hours 30 minutes and two seconds.
Seixas narrowly beat Florian Lipowitz of Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe to the victory, while Javier Romo of Movistar Team came third to join them on the podium.
Antonio Tiberi was Bahrain Victorious’ second-best rider in 68th yesterday, while Roman Ermakov finished 85th, Attila Valter came 90th, Oliver Stockwell finished 122nd, and Rainer Kepplinger was 130th.
With the stage five results, Bilbao climbed two places to ninth on the general classification, where he went five minutes behind Seixas, who is the race’s overall leader. Bilbao also rose three places to 18th on the points rankings.
Ermakov, on the other hand, remained 15th on the best young rider rankings, which is also still led by Seixas.
In this year’s Itzulia Basque Country, the peloton will cover a total of 810.1km from Bilbao to the finish in Bergara, tackling a total of 16,404m of climbing.
Today’s sixth and final leg will cover 135.2km.
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