Jonas Vingegaard secured his second stage victory at the CRO Race winning the queen stage 5 and taking the overall race lead in Labin.
The Jumbo-Visma rider was part of a large breakaway and then formed part of a select group on the final climb into the finish. He surged on the steep slopes of the cobbled ascent, catching late-race attacker Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels-KTM), and then beating Oscar Onley (Development Team DSM) and Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) for the stage win.
"I had to gamble at the end of the stage and wait for the right moment to attack. My team did a great job throughout the stage. This race reminded me of Vuelta al País Vasco, it was an interesting stage and difficult to race. I'm not sure that I secured overall victory because Mohorič is very close to me, and there are also several other fast riders," said Vingegaard.
Vingegaard now leads the overall race into the final stage 6 by eight seconds ahead of Mohorič and Onley as they tackle a 158km from Sveta Nedelja to Zagreb on Sunday.
How it unfolded
The penultimate stage of the CRO Race was a 154km route from Opatija to Labin. Double stage winner and overnight leader Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious) began the race with a 10-second lead on Vingegaard in the overall classification. However, the day included six categorised ascents and a punchy circuit climb to the finish in Labin that would reshuffle the overall classification.
Roughly 20 riders broke away and gained two minutes on the chasing group that included Milan as his Bahrain Victorious teammates tried to close the gap. The breakaway included Vingegaard, Onley and Mohorič along with the previous day's stage winner Axel Laurance (B&B Hotels-KTM).
While the gap was reduced to under a minute, it bloomed back out to two and a half with 25km to go, signifying that the Bahrain Victorious' chase to limit losses behind had stopped.
The large breakaway split apart over the circuit climb through the finish line in Labin, as several riders began to struggle. A select group formed that included Vingegaard, Onley, Mohorič and Torstein Træen (Uno-X), Vincenzo Albanese (EOLO-Kometa), Brandon Smith Rivera and Omar Fraile (Ineos Grenadiers), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), Jonathan Lastra (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), and Chris Hamilton (Team DSM).
Attacks happened over the final two hilly circuits that saw Hamilton, Buitrago and Fraile escape the group. The two chase groups behind merged back together in pursuit of the three leaders on the road.
Hamilton, Buitrago and Fraile had nearly a minute in hand but that dropped drastically ahead of the last lap and it was back together at the front, with 16 riders, with 12km to go.
Vingegaard attacked on the cobbled ascent and through the finish line with one to go. Onley followed and Mohorič, Træen, Albanese and Rivera reconnected. The group swelled back up to 10 riders with 5km to go with attacks coming from Hamilton and Lastra, but they showed signs of fatigue ahead of the last climb to the finish.
Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels-KTM) took a flyer with 3km to go and although he gained 20 seconds it wasn't enough to hold off the chase behind on the cobbled climb to the finish as Vingegaard powered passed the Frenchman to take the stage 5 win.
Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews, overseeing the global racing content plan.
Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.
She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.
