DOUBTERS SILENCED! 🤫 | 2026 Stage 5 Tour Auvergne Rhone Alpes Race Highlights | TNT Sports Cycling

Thursday was stage five of the Tour Auvergne-Ronald. The sun was shining, the build-up to the Tour de France was continuing, and this was likely the final opportunity for any sprint so far in this race. 196 kilometers, enough climbing, but all of it in the first half of the stage. The issue for sprinters, however, was that the field wasn't too deep, not too many teams would want to control, and as we headed to Villars-les-Dombes and the Parc des Oiseaux, there was maybe a fourth opportunity in the running, too, for the breakaway. Yes, as Bahrain controlled with Visma and Tudor, we knew that the breakaway had taken each and every road stage so far in this race. Just 24 hours before, they'd held off quite brilliantly, with Quinn Simmonds winning the stage. Today, six riders up the road. Reindrink was with Gernelech Engelhardt-Uhl, winner of a stage from a breakaway at the Tour de France a few years ago. Ariel Lamingoa, and also Robert Dante. Alex Bourdin was in yellow. 12 seconds of a lead, not expected to be challenged. The breakaway here having a maximum gap of two and a half minutes, but it was well on the way to being brought down. Just over a minute with 50 kilometers remaining. It was as calm a day as you can get in professional cycling in the peloton, and only in the final 40k's or so, when the breakaway started to react, was the pace having to be upped. 21-year-old Don for Picnic Postenel would try and pull on, and each and every rider was giving their best. For a while, a little bit of a gap was added yet again, but it was brought back inside the final 20 kilometers. Calm before the storm of three mountain stages at the weekend, for those having to work for leaders. Bahrain-Pintre, one of those. And the final bit to that breakaway brought back with 12 kilometers remaining. Brian Coca, just a few days after very sadly losing his father. Wout van Aert, Matteo Trentin, Phil Bauhaus were all the favorites, but as they went on to the final turn into a three kilometer long straight, up to a finish where Mark Cavendish had been a winner at the Tour de France, things would then get going in earnest. Koufidis would really start to line things out. Benjamin Thomas doing a great job, but just before the final kilometer, the main trains took over. It's stage five of what used to be the Dauphiné, now the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Jayco moving up through the center. Wout van Aert, the big favorite today, but you can see that Dorian Godon, the French champion, trying to take a victory before he has to give the jersey up. He's being put into position now by his main man, Josh Tarling. On the left, you can see the yellow jerseys ready to go. 500 meters now, and it's Dauphiné who's trying to string it out. Wout van Aert sitting in third wheel, fighting for his wheel behind the likes of Bauhaus and Godon as well. Others moving up. Trentin is there. Michael Matthews would quite like to have a go at this maybe. And now the sprint is launched as they get towards the end. On the right, as we look at it, in the yellow left now, it's Wout van Aert, but coming through the center, they're trying to challenge him. Wout van Aert with another burst of acceleration, and Wout van Aert wins at the counter. Never in doubt. They left it mightily late into the win there, but once Wout van Aert went, you could not see anybody else coming around him, Steve. And nobody could come around him. Wout van Aert, despite not being at his best, by self-admission, was good enough to beat the distraught Hugo Ousterter, who saw the chance of his life. He finished second, and it will be a third place for Phil Bauhaus, with Bahrain having contributed to the work throughout the day. Second win of the season on the road for van Aert. First since winning in the velodrome in Roubaix in spring. And what a record at the Dauphiné. Six stage wins for him down the years here. So Wout van Aert alongside the Ousterter, Bauhaus, Braat, and Renat Hakin with the second top five of the week. Dorian Godon having to settle for sixth, and Rijsberg taking seventh. That meant that he kept the green jersey. Stage win though for Wout van Aert, back on the top of a podium, and he'll be feeling better about that going into the Tour. In the general classification, it's all to play for. Boudin holding on. He took the jersey in the mountains. He will now try to defend it as they return to the mountains. At his first test will be a home stage above Albertville, where he lives. Starting in Saint-Vulbas, important place in sprinting down the years, I think Project 35. But it's Albertville, home of the Olympics back in the day, and finishing up at Christ-Volant, the first of three consecutive mountain stages in the Dauphiné. And the now renamed Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes will continue on TNT Sports and HBO Max.