The 119-kilometer Stage 5 from León to Astorga was billed as a straightforward sprint day, but La Vuelta Femenina once again delivered absolute chaos. Rain, slick roads, and a massive late-race crash completely shattered the peloton in the final kilometers, leaving only a reduced group of survivors to fight for the finish. But the carnage ultimately didn’t matter, because the SD Worx-Protime juggernaut operates on a completely different, terrifying level. After methodically controlling the front of the race, Mischa Bredewold launched what was supposed to be a flawless, textbook uphill lead-out for the red jersey wearer, Lotte Kopecky. The only problem was that Bredewold accelerated so violently that she simply dropped the entire field. Kopecky comfortably sat up and monitored the gap, gifting the win to her teammate and rolling across the line for her fourth runner-up finish of the week. Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco) mounted a heroic, bruised comeback after crashing earlier in the day to take third. Kopecky safely retains her overall race lead, which is incredibly depressing news for the rest of the peloton as the race finally heads into the brutal Asturian mountains tomorrow.
Results
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