Cycling: This year's edition of the Andalucia Bike Race remains exciting! The Extremadura MTB Team, which was able to make a leap forward with another victory in the overall ranking, played a large part in this. But the field of drivers, which is becoming thinner and thinner, also creates excitement.
Actually, the Andalucia Bike Race would be firmly in the hands of Romero and Pinto from the Extremadura MTB Team, but the defect on the third stage caused some turbulence in the overall standings. In the fifth stage, the Spanish/Portuguese duo was able to win again - meanwhile the fourth victory! The other places were followed by Hynek/Lakata (Topeak Ergon Racing Team 1), four seconds behind, and Flückiger/Rohrbach (Stöckli Pro Team), 1:49 minutes behind the winning duo.
The fifth day of this year's Andalucia Bike Race was characterized by many failures. In the early stages of the 86-kilometer stage, Markus Kaufmann fell and had to be taken to the hospital with a suspected broken collarbone. From a German point of view, the failure of the Bulls 2 team with Stiebjahn and Böhme is also very regrettable. Tim Böhme was unable to take part in the race due to stomach cramps.
After stage five, Lakata and Hynek (Topeak Ergon Racing Team) lead the overall standings with a time of 15:06:08. The two Portuguese Serralheiro and Oliveira (Selecao Nacional Liberty Seguros 1) are 5 minutes and 21 seconds behind in second place, Romero and Pinto (Extremadura MTB Team) have made up one more place and are currently third in the general classification. The gap to Lakata/Hynek is 2 minutes and 6 seconds. In the women's category, the Wheeler Pro Team with Landtwing and Süss is still at the top. Zakelj and Galicia (Polar Trek Team) follow, 56 minutes and 4 seconds back. The Belgian Cycling Team with Michiels and Pirard is already 53 minutes behind the leading Swiss duo, but they have an almost half-hour lead over Looney and Aardal (Freakshow Defeet).