Volta ao Algarve: Remco Evenepoel wins overall for third time as Martínez takes final stage

Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) sprinted to victory on stage 5 of the Volta ao Algarve, beating Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) on the Alto do Malhão, but the Belgian was close enough to secure the overall victory in Portugal.

Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) took third on the stage, which culminated in a small-group sprint at the top of the steep climb.

Evenepoel's second-place finish on the Queen stage earned him his third GC victory in the Volta ao Algarve after winning the time trial on Saturday.

Martínez's win was his second of the week, and saw him finish second overall and win the mountains classification.

Inside the final 40km of racing, Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) launched a move from the peloton to bridge to the large breakaway group and take the lead of the race. For a time, they had enough of a lead over Evenepoel to put Van Aert in the virtual GC lead, but Soudal Quick-Step and Bora-Hansgrohe were able to close them down in the final kilometres.

Despite taking the overall title, Evenepoel expressed his disappointment about not being able to win the stage, and continuing his streak of missing out on this finish.

“I’m very happy with the overall win,” Evenepoel said at the finish. “Also my team handled a difficult situation in a very strong way today. We always kept calm, especially if you have a guy like Mikel Landa in the team, he has a lot of experience, he controls the guys. I’m just super proud of the boys.

“But the result of the day… It’s a bit of a double feeling. The last 20km, I couldn’t go in my small ring anymore so I had to do the full climb in the big ring, which killed my legs, because I’m a guy that likes to have a high cadence. I think that’s what caused the outcome in the sprint a bit because I still had the feeling that I was very powerful, but with the super high gear on the whole climb my legs were a bit out of energy, which is a pity because I think I could have won today.”

Big names animate the hardest stage in the Algarve

Sunday’s 165km Queen stage brought almost 3,000m of climbing and was the most decisive stage of the race. With five categorised climbs along the route, it was always going to be a hard-fought day, and the risky profile meant teams were hyper vigilant about breakaway attempts in the first half of the race. As a result, all the early attacks were shut down, and the peloton was all still together for the first 60km of racing.

On the first categorised climb, Wout van Aert took maximum points ahead of Sepp Kuss and Remco Evenepoel, as the favourite teams kept control of the front of the race. Soon after this, though, as the race crossed the 100km to go mark, a big split happened in the peloton with 20 riders breaking off the front of the group.

The group contained riders like Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), Mattia Cattaneo (Soudal Quick-Step) and Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek) so was very strong but not too threatening overall - the highest-placed rider was James Shaw (EF Education-EasyPost), 3:57 down. As a result, the GC teams, who mainly had representation in the break, allowed the move to get away, and the leaders soon built up a three-minute advantage.

On the second climb of the day, stage 2 attacker Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility) took maximum points, showing his strength in the lead group as their gap stabilised heading towards the final 70km of racing. In the peloton, Soudal Quick-Step were keeping things under control for yellow jersey-wearer Evenepoel.

Heading into the final 40km, the peloton were eating into the leaders’ advantage, bringing it down to about a minute. Once the gap was small enough, Wout van Aert launched an attack from the bunch in an attempt to bridge to the leaders, joined by Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost). They soon joined up with Van Aert’s teammate Per Strand Hagenes from the break, and caught the front of the race with 30km to go.

Van Aert immediately upped the pace in the front group on the first ascent of the Malhão climb, which saw riders begin to drop away, and with 25km Van Aert and Healy accelerated again to drop the remainder of the break, with only Gijs Leemreize (dsm-firmenich PostNL) able to follow. This move put Van Aert into the virtual lead with 20km to go, just over a minute ahead of the reduced peloton, which was led by a now-threatened Soudal Quick-Step.

Evenepoel’s teammates were making inroads into the leaders, reducing the gap to 50 seconds with 14km to go, which put the virtual yellow back onto Evenepoel’s shoulders. With 11km to go, both Mattia Cattaneo and James Knox peeled off the front of the peloton, leaving just Mikel Landa to chase down the leaders for Evenepoel, though they had help from Bora-Hansgrohe, trying to maintain Dani Martinez’s spot on the podium.

Heading into the final 5km, the gap was down to 18 seconds before the start of the final ascent of the Alto do Malhão. The gap quickly shrank as the climb began, though, as Bora’s Bob Jungels closed in on the leaders, with Evenepoel on his wheel. Van Aert was the first to drop from the leading trio, followed by Leemreize, before Healy was finally caught within the last 2km.

Sergio Higuita (Bora-Hansgrohe) led the group into the final 2km, setting up the first tentative attack from Martínez, but Evenepoel was stuck to the Colombian’s wheel, biding his time into the final kilometre. Sepp Kuss and Visma-Lease a Bike tried to force the next attack, but no one could make a difference in the lead group until the final few hundred metres. Evenepoel opened up his sprint first, but was rounded by Martínez, who out-sprinted the Belgian for the second time in this race to repeat his win from stage 2. The Colombian finished three seconds ahead, whilst Tom Pidcock took third place, another five seconds behind Evenepoel.

Even with bonus seconds, Martínez’s win was not enough to overhaul Evenepoel in the lead, meaning Evenepoel secured the GC victory, equalling the overall titles record with three. Martinez finished second overall, with Jan Tratnik (Visma-Lease a Bike) rounding out the final podium.

For more from the Volta ao Algarve, visit our dedicated race page.