It was an emphatic victory from Paul Double (Jayco-AlUla) on stage 5's summit finish of the Gree-Tour of Guangxi in Nongla on Saturday, which traditionally crowns the overall winner of the six-stage WorldTour race.
He flew the coop on the slopes of the category 1 finishing climb that capped the stage which started in Yizhou and crossed the line solo, with a nine-second gap to second-placed Victor Lafay (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale). Mikkel Honoré (EF Education-EasyPost), who finished a further two seconds back, rounded out the stage podium.
The 165.8km stage with 1,718m of climbing was the day the non-sprinters in the field had been waiting for, even though the total elevation gain may have actually dropped compared to recent stages. As expected, after fastman Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) had won the first four stages, the brutally steep uphill finish finally broke the stranglehold of the sprinters.
