Volta a Catalunya stage 6 LIVE: Huge breakaway gets away in frantic battle to form the move of the day

It appears that Soudal-Quickstep are doing the majority of the damage in the peloton with Pascal Eenkhoorn trying to set up Filippo Zana to go into the break.

Another abandon today, Anton Kuzmin (XDS-Astana).

Vingegaard is caught in the second split

All of his major GC rivals in the front group. There is about 40 seconds splitting them.

Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Richard Carapaz (EF Edcuation-EasyPost) are among the riders involved in the recent attacking.

The lone rider was caught but the pace continues to be high with more splits starting to form.

The peloton split again with 25 riders out front. However, it does appear that it is coming back together again. There is one rider from UAE Team Emirates-XRG out front on his own.

There have been several attacks but nothing is sticking at the moment.

The peloton has split due to such a high pace with about 40 riders at the front.

Veistroffer and Hvideberg have been dragged back into the peloton again.

The French rider now has a close rival in the KOM fight in Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), but Veistroffer has jumped first to try and take points ahead of the Italian. He is joined by Norwegian rouleur, Hvideberg. However, they only have a tiny margin on the bunch.

The race was stopped so that the ambulance to take Michel Hessmann to hospital. The Movistar rider crashed in the neutral zone and required a neck brace and stretcher to get him into the ambulance and to be taken to hospital.

We wish the German all the best and hope that he has a smooth recovery.

A few kilometres in a no-one has blinked first and made an acceleration just yet.

No attacks have gone off the front of the bunch just yet.

The race has been stopped.

No reason for it just yet. The crash of the Movistar rider is the only information that has come through so far.

The race start appears to be a touch delayed. Riders having some issues with their bikes, no doubt.

Pidcock is the only non-starter but six riders didn’t finish yesterday so the peloton is down to just 146 riders.

The riders roll out of the start in the centre of Berga and begin the neutral zone.

With about five minutes to the start of the neutralised zone, Vingegaard and everyone else have signed on for the day. Will the new race leader continue the dominance he showed yesterday with another win today?

The neutral start is due to happen in about half an hour.

One rider also not starting today is Pidcock with a “ballooned knee”. The Yorkshireman voices his frustration on not being able to race the final climb of yesterday with the best and not being able to carry on this weekend, but apparently he will need “a bit of time for it to heal” after crashing on the final descent of yesterday…

Jerseys after stage 5

GC – Jonas Vingegaard (TVL)
Points – Dorian Godon (IGD)
KOM – Baptiste Veistroffer (LOI)
Youth – Lenny Martinez (TBV)

For the first time in the race this year, all the riders that own the jersey will wear it as no-one leads in multiple classifications anymore such as Godon in GC and points of Veistroffer in KOM and points.

Two riders didn’t start yesterday and six didn’t finish. They were:

Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek)
Noah Hobbs (EF Edcuation-EasyPost)
Noa Isidore (Decathlon-CMA CGM)
Sam Bennett (Pinarello-Q36.5)
Mathieu Kockelmann (Lotto-Intermarche)
Kieran Haug (Modern Adventure)}
Alexey Lutsenko (NSN)
Nico Denz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

But onto today, it is the final mountain stage. The riders will roll out of Berga and head across the 158.2km route that takes in four categorised climbs, including the Especial climb of the Coll de Pradell, as well as two intermediate sprints and a summit finish on the category 1 ascent of the Queralt.

The riders have 3614 metres of climbing to do but the first climb, the Coll de la Batallola, doesn’t top out until after 60km of riding has been completed.

Patrick Lefevere has voiced his opinion on his former rider, Evenepoel, yet again saying how the Belgian star should focus on one-day races rather than week long stage races and Grand Tours…

>>> ‘It may well turn out that he’s a one-day rider’ – Former manager Patrick Lefevere questions Remco Evenepoel’s racing priorities

It was a mixed day in the GC fight for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe as their big name leader, Remco Evenepoel, faltered on La Molina. However, their other GC man, Florian Lipowitz, shone brightly and finished fourth on the day and is well in the fight for a GC podium. His first since his surprise podium finish at last year’s Tour de France.

>>> ‘No reason to panic’ – Remco Evenepoel drops down Volta a Catalunya standings as Florian Lipowitz closes in on podium

It was a very scary finale descent for Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) as he midjudged a corner and fell into a ravine.

“I was drinking on the descent and misjudged a corner,” Pidcock said in a team press release. “I overshot it and went down the ravine. It was like one of these horror crashes you see, but I’m very lucky that I am OK.

“I’ll go for a check, but I think I’m OK.”

“I am lucky I could talk on the radio. I was far from the road, and nobody knew I was there. I’m happy I could finish the stage.”

>>> ‘Today I lost a life for sure’ – Tom Pidcock ‘OK’ after crashing into a ravine in the Volta a Catalunya out of sight of race

Let’s take a look back at the amazing action of the first summit finish yesterday with our post race report…

>>> Volta a Catalunya: Jonas Vingegaard dominates stage 5 mountaintop finish to Coll de Pal for solo victory

Hola and welcome to the penultimate stage of the Volta a Catalunya 2026 live here on Cyclingnews‘ live report page.

Sign on and rider presentation is well underway in Berga. The race does a huge loop today and we will see Berga again right before the final climb to the Santuari de Queralt the finish of the stage.