The 2025 Tour de Suisse continued Thursday with stage 5 – a 183.8-kilometer ride from La Punt Chamues to Santa Maria in Calanca. The stage will feature no less than four category 1 climbs, culminating with a Category 1 climb to the finish line.

Stars included in the line-up for this year’s Tour de Suisse we expected to battle for general classification advancements and the stage victory. The race favorites included Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Victorious), Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Geraint Thomas (Ineos-Grenadiers), Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek), Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team), and Tudor Pro Cycling Team’s Marc Hirschi and Julian Alaphilippe.

Stage 5 of the 2025 Tour de Suisse got off to a fast start and multiple breakaway attempts were launched from the peloton in the first part of the stage, as some riders were trying to battle for the stage victory from a long breakaway, several riders needed to make up for lost time in the GC, and some team lieutenants were sent up the road to be used as front posts by their team captains later in the stage.

A group got established on Julierpass, which was the first Category 1 climb of the day and featured an average gradient of 6.5 percent over a distance of 7.3 kilometers. The group featured Ion Izagirre (Cofidis Team), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious), Nicolo Buratti (Bahrain-Victorious), Leo Bisiaux (Decathlon-AG2R), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Ben Swift (Ineos-Grenadiers), Juan Pedro Lopez (Lidl-Trek), Javier Romo (Movistar), Felix Engelhardt (Jayco-Alula), Alberto Bettiol, and Sjoerd Bax (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team).

Additional attacks were launched from the main peloton as riders were hoping to jump to the front group on the climb, before a long, fast and winding descent. The front group got reshuffled and a new group featuring Bilbao, Powless, Romo, Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), and Lorenzo Fortunato was formed and initiated their long descent while approaching the next climbing section of today’s stage 5.

The front quintet reached the next climbing section with a time advantage of approximately two minutes. 

The five breakaway optimists approached the San Bernardino Pass (Category One) with a time advantage of 03:35 minutes over the chasing peloton and eighty kilometers of the stage remaining. The riders were still cooperating well, and a major scalp was at stake in today’s stage, which could prove important for Tour de France team roster qualification. 

The San Bernardino Pass caused riders to get dropped from the back of the peloton. The fast pace would be taking its toll on all riders in the race. The first rider to reach the summit would win a special award in honor of the late Gino Mader, who passed away in Tour of Switzerland two years ago. Perhaps his close friend and former teammate Pello Bilbao, who was in the breakaway, would win it.

UAE Team Emirates were controlling the front of the main peloton on the climb and the peloton was stretched out. The front quintet was now 02:20 minutes behind.

Aleksandr Vlasov was the first rider to reach the summit of San Bernardino and would receive the Gino Mader award on the race podium after the stage. The terrain of the San Bernardino Pass is extremely scenic and beautiful. Mountainous, green, cliffs, and small mountain lakes.

The speed in the main peloton had increased significantly with 27 kilometers left. UAE Team Emirates were setting a fast pace for its team leader Joao Almeida, who won yesterday’s stage. The advantage of the front quintet had decreased to 01:15 minutes when the front group entered the Castaneda climb, which was a Category One climb on narrow roads over 4.5 kilometers and with a gradient of 9.5 percent.

Alexandr Vlasov attacked from the front group when 2.7 kilometers of the climb remained. Meanwhile, Mikkel Bjerg was leading the pace in the main peloton for UAE Team Emirates.

Neilson Powless and Pello Bilbao were pushing hard to reel in Vlasov on the climb. The duo caught the Russian rider when 1.5 kilometers remained of Castaneda. The trio continued up the climb with the main peloton half a minute behind. Previous breakaway optimists Lorenzo Fortunato and Javier Romo got reeled in by the main peloton.

Bilbao and Vlasov dropped Powless from the front group shortly before the summit of Castaneda. The reduced GC favorites peloton group was not far behind. Ben O’Connor was surprisingly not included in the GC favorites group.

Vlasov was the first rider to reach the summit, but Bilbao launched a counterattack on the descent that followed. The duo joined forces on the downhill stretch with Powless chasing further back, closely tailed by the reduced GC favorites group, which featured Joao Almeida, Kevin Vauquelin, Felix Gall, Oscar Onley, Ilan van Wilder, Matthew Riccitello, Julian Alaphilippe, and other riders.

Powless rejoined Bilbao and Vlasov when fifteen kilometers of the stage remained. The trio’s advantage was thirty seconds. Meanwhile, more riders were joining the GC favorites group from behind.

The riders were approaching the Castaneda climb, which would take the riders to the finish line.

The reduced GC favorites peloton group caught Vlasov, Powless and Bilbao with 8.8 kilometers to the finish line.

Joao Almeida got dropped from the front peloton group on the climb with 2.5 kilometers to the finish line. Yesterday’s stage winner was not having endless energy after his victory in yesterday’s stage.

Julian Alaphilippe attacked solo for Tudor Pro Cycling with 2.2 kilometers left. He got joined by Oscar Onley, but the chasers were not far behind with 1.7 kilometers to the finish line.

Almeida had rediscovered his fine form and was in the chase group a few meters behind Onley and Alaphilippe. 

Onley dropped Frenchman Alaphilippe and Almeida was now the first chaser.

Joao Almeida caught Onley, and the duo was about one kilometer from the finish line. Almeida accelerated and did his upmost to drop Onley who was performing impressively in today’s stage 5. Felix Gall was chasing further back, followed by Kevin Vauquelin, and Julian Alaphilippe.

Almeida was leading Onley up the climb with three hundred meters left.

Onley accelerated and launched his sprint in the final hundred meters. Almeida almost caught and passed the rider from Great Britain, but it was Onley who proved the strongest man on the day. Oscar Onley has won stage 5 of the 2025 Tour de Suisse for Team Picnic-PostNL ahead of Joao Almeida. Felix Gall reached the finish line 23 seconds later to complete the stage podium. Kevin Vauquelin finished fourth, and Matthre Riccitello was fifth. Julian Alaphilippe was seventh and Lennard Kamna finished eighth. 

Previous GC leader Romain Gregoire had a bad day in the saddle and lost many minutes. Kevin Vauquelin is the new leader of the general classification, 29 seconds ahead of Julian Alaphilippe, while Joao Almeida advanced to third place. Oscar Onley is fourth and Lennard Kamna fifth in the GC.

Friday’s stage 6 of Tour de Suisse 2025 will be a 186.7-kilometer ride from Chur to Neuhausen am Rheinfall. The stage will feature two Category Two climbs early in the stage but will otherwise feature many downhill meters as the riders are brought down from the mountains. The stage is expected to culminate in a mass sprint finish or a win from a long breakaway.

Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com for complete coverage from the 2025 Tour de Suisse.