Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) claimed the GP Miguel Indurain for the third and final time of his career before he retires at the end of the season.
The Basque rider followed an attack at the start of the final, hilly lap with 29km to go and came into the final climb with two riders: Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) and Markel Beloki (EF Education-Easypost).
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How it unfolded
The 203.9 kilometre GP Miguel Indurain kicked off with a five-man breakaway containing Carlos García Pierna and Sinuhé Fernández (Burgos Burpellet BH), Unai Aznar (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Rafael Durães (Efapel), and Louis Ferreira (Anicolor/Campicarn). They rapidly gained five minutes on the peloton before a combination of climbs and an increasingly intense chase brought them back to within a minute when the television cameras came on with 65km to go.
As the breakaway began to shatter thanks in part to an attack from Fernández, a counter-attack went clear from the field with Carlos Verona (Lidl-Trek), Nicola Conci (XDS Astana), and Domen Novak (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). They picked up García Pierna but the move was nullified before it could get fully established.
After being joined by Geoffrey Bouchard (TotalEnergies) and Jokin Murguialday (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Fernández was finally relieved of his breakaway duties on the Alto de Lezáun with 50km to go.
As the two leaders were getting caught, another counter-attack came from the peloton just before the summit, driven by Javier Romo (Movistar). He was joined by Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek) and Jardi van der Lee (EF Education-EasyPost). Mattia Gaffuri (Picnic-PostNL), Jesús Herrada (Burgos Burpellet BH), George Bennett (NSN) and Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) scrambled across, too, for a leading group of ten.
After a brief attack from Van Eetvelt and Bennett was brought back, Tiberi launched a move and was joined by Bernard, but the peloton picked up the chasers with 38km to go.
XDS Astana led the pursuit of the two escapees,…
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