Seixas conquers Itzulia queen stage to complete hat-trick of stage wins

Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) stamped his authority on the Itzulia Basque Country by winning a two-up sprint against Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) on stage 5, the queen stage, in Eibar.

Seixas went clear with Lipowitz on the ascent to Izua with 29km remaining, leading to a heavyweight showdown between the riders who sat first and third in the GC at the beginning of the stage.

It was a battle of both strength and skill on the run-in back to Eibar as the duo flew up the remaining climbs, rocketed down the descents, and powered through the valley roads. Lipowitz led out the sprint, but Seixas had too much on the cobbled final straight and powered to another stage win.

Javier Romo (Movistar) soloed to third at 1:03, just ahead of the GC pack at 1:11 behind the stage winner.

The Frenchman now has a hat-trick of stage victories and moves one stage away from becoming the youngest winner of a UCI WorldTour stage race. 

The final stage is another difficult one that could shake up the GC, and Seixas currently holds 2:30 of an advantage over Lipowitz, who moved up to second, while Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) slipped to third at 3:40.

The queen stage of this year's Itzulia lived up to its billing. A strong group of 29 riders formed the day’s breakaway, with Kévin Vauquelin (Ineos Grenadiers) the most handily placed in the GC at 5:10 from the race leader Seixas.

With the size of the breakaway, there were riders who wanted to push on and form a more selective group. It was Steven Kruijswijk (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarché) who went clear and built an advantage of over 2 minutes.

However, the race situation changed significantly on the run-in and the ascent of the toughest climb of the day, with over 70km remaining, where the duo were swept up by the chasers. The climb to Krabelin was a vicious one, at 5km in length with an average gradient of 9.6%.

Seixas took control, with his teammate Matthew Riccitello (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) the only riders able to initially hold the wheel, as the trio swept past the remnants of the breakaway.

All the while, Vauquelin pushed on ahead and reached the summit first with a 20-second advantage over the chasing group, which had swelled to around 25 riders and featured the majority of GC contenders, though not Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) and Ben Tulett (Visma | Lease a Bike).

Vauquelin was swept up on the descent and on the valley roads that followed, Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) went clear, building a solid advantage over the GC group led by the Decathlon duo of Riccitello and Nicolas Prohomme. Meanwhile, Skjelmose and Tulett were in a group over two minutes behind. 

The front duo were caught on the next categorised ascent to Izua, as Seixas pushed the tempo and went clear with Lipowitz, while Primož Roglič was next on the road at around 15 seconds behind.

Javier Romo (Movistar) spectacularly managed to catch and pass Roglič, who was solo in third, before closing to Seixas and Lipowitz just before the summit. However, no sooner had he made contact than Romo painfully clipped the wheel of Lipowitz in front of him, hitting the deck just metres before reaching the summit. 

On the descent, Seixas pushed the pace with Lipowitz on his wheel, as Romo and Roglič were just over 20 seconds behind, with a larger chase group following. Roglic and Romo were caught by those behind, and with 5km remaining, the gap between the front duo and chasers was around 40 seconds.

Romo took a flyer from the chasers with under 2km to go, but it would be too late. Lipowitz led out the sprint, but Seixas had too much for the German, taking his third stage win.