Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) defended brilliantly to claim overall victory at the Tour de Hongrie as Wout Poels won stage 5 after a brutally tough uphill finale into Pécs.
After his two back-to-back stage wins, Nys marked moves and emptied the tank to defend his yellow jersey, holding off attacks from Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe).
The German champion animated much of the finale with Nys and Callum Scotson (Jayco AlUla) following, but it was Poels who bridged to the leading quartet in the final kilometre before out-sprinting all of them to the line.
This was Poels’ first win in 2024 and Nys’ first-ever stage race victory, with the 21-year-old rider holding onto a 12 second margin to his nearest GC rival.
“It was a super hard final, I had a really good feeling from the beginning of the race already. I felt pretty strong. On the first time Pécs was really hard and I started to suffer more than I predicted, but then the second time was already better and I felt that I recovered really good from the climb and the efforts," said Nys.
"In the end I’m actually disappointed I didn’t win a third stage, but I was a bit too much with my head looking to the GC and I didn’t want to leave any gaps, and that’s where I think I lost the stage today, but the GC was more important. I’m super happy, it’s been an incredible week.”
The strong efforts of Buchmann and Poels saw them move up to the podium while Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) went from second overall to fourth, ending up just one second behind Buchmann on the GC after coming sixth on the final stage. His teammate Hirschi was fifth overall.
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