Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) took a huge step in his young career as he claimed his first WorldTour win on stage 5 of Itzulia Basque Country after an all-out day of racing from Vitoria-Gasteiz to Amorebieta-Etxano.
After a breathless final 50km, a blanket finish decided the day as Grégoire arrived first at the line narrowly ahead of a fast-finishing Orluis Aular (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) in second.
Maximilian Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) took third on the day after closing down the late attack of Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) in the final kilometre and leading out the reduced-group sprint.
Grégoire, 21, didn't know he had won after the line but it was later confirmed that he had taken the biggest win of his career so far after impressing but only just missing out on a stage win at last year's Vuelta in just his second season with Groupama-FDJ's senior team.
Schachmann's strong finish moved him up to second overall behind Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) whose team worked all day to protect his yellow jersey. Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) dropped to third heading into tomorrow's brutal final day of racing starting and finishing in Eibar, but with everything still to play for and the top-eight only separated by 15 seconds.
"It's a colossal relief. I really had to hunt hard for this, it was very fast all day long," said Grégoire in his flash interview.
"I had a great leadout from Quentin [Pacher], I was in the perfect position with 500 metres to go. He led me out right away. There was a rider ahead who had a bit of a gap so I suffered a lot to get to the finish, and I wasn't sure I had won which was very stressful for a couple of minutes."
Grégoire was a highly touted under-23 prospect after taking wins at the Tour de l'Avenir and U23 Giro before he confirmed his status as a talent to watch in 2023 with wins at the 4 Jours de Dunkerque and Tour du Limousin-Périgord against WorldTour-level fields.
"It's my first WorldTour win and that really counts for something," he said. "I'm delighted."
How it unfolded
The fifth stage of Itzulia Basque Country had a muted start from Vitoria-Gasteiz after the horrific high-speed crash on stage 4 changed both the mood in the peloton and the situation of the race.
Skjelmose found himself in the leader's yellow jersey with the three pre-race GC favourites, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) all crashing out with varying degrees of injury.
Despite the less-than-thrilled mood of the riders, the racing did go on and a rapid start to the stage saw a tough fight for the break unfold across the false flat opening 45km of racing.
Average speeds were up close to 50kmph with big groups trying to get away before the first categorised climb of the day, but none found success. Splits formed on the downhill run to the category 1 Urkiola climb, however, things remained together with Skjelmose and Lidl-Trek staying safe towards the front.
With the 5.5 kilometre, 9.4% average gradient climb incoming, there were reports of a crash in the peloton for riders from Soudal-QuickStep and it was later revealed that Mikel Landa and Gil Gelders, as well as Gonzalo Serrano (Movistar), were forced to abandon - adding to the long list of injuries from this race.
Landa's injury was later confirmed to be a broken collarbone, the same injury suffered by both Evenepoel and Vingegaard yesterday.
Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Isaac del Torro (UAE Team Emirates) attacked away with just under 90km to go on the climb and their advantage eked out close to the minute mark until they were reeled back in with 63km to go.
A nine-man group then took their chance to get ahead of the pack, started by Ivan Cobo (Kern Pharma) before he was joined by Jimmy Janssens (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Martijn Tusveld (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Johannes Staune-Mettet (Visma-Lease a Bike), Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla), Harrison Wood (Cofidis), Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies), Enekoitz Azparren (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and José Manuel Diaz (Burgos-BH).
Lidl-Trek took up the mantle of chasing with the race leader among their ranks, causing the break's lead to melt away on the first ascent of the 3.4km Muniketagaina climb. However, Skjelmose was slightly isolated with few riders left to support the Dane.
The break was pegged back in ones and twos as the road continued to climb, leaving Janssens as the last man standing before he was bridged across to by the likes of Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) and William Junior Lecerf (Soudal-QuickStep).
Trek put out the fire once again after the climb was crested and the race entered its final 30 kilometres. More chaos immediately kicked off as the American team simply didn't have the number to control everything, allowing Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) and Remy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ) to lead a group off the front.
As the race reached the Muniketagane climb again, the thrilling action was far from over as more attacks were launched in pursuit of the lone leader Rochas. Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) tried their luck before the head of the race came back together.
Skjelmose was forced into action himself to try and defend the jersey after great work by Tao Geoghegan Hart for Lidl-Trek, but the attacks continued to come even on the fast descent leading into the final 9km. UAE Team Emirates used their numbers well as Del Torro, Brandon McNulty and Juan Ayuso all showed their hand to skip away off the front, but Geoghegan Hart found a second wind and began the job of chasing down the US rider.
McNulty was reeled back while in a tunnel before as more teams began to taste the stage victory and started to help Lidl-Trek control things.
Del Torro tried one last time to launch off the front similar to how he won stage 1 of the Tour Down Under in January, but this time he was followed by Rodríguez for Ineos. The former Spanish champion kept his drive until Schachmann led the charge to reel him back in.
The German hit the wind first from the small group sprinting it out for the win but a solid leadout from Pacher allowed Gregoire to both pull alongside him and then cross the line just a tyre's width ahead of both Schachmann and Aular. The Venezuelan champion was going fastest at the line but had to come from deeper in the bunch and ran out of road to snatch victory.
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