UAE Team Emirates-XRG won stage five of the Vuelta a Espana, completing the team time trial in the quickest time - but not quite quick enough to avoid rival Jonas Vingegaard regaining the leader’s red jersey.
UAE completed the 24.1km, flat course in 25:26, finishing nine seconds quicker than Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike squad.
But overnight race leader David Gaudu and his team Groupama-FDJ finished ninth on the stage in Figueres in 25:51, with the Frenchman slipping down to sixth in the overall standings at 16 seconds off Vingegaard.
The UAE trio of co-leaders Juan Ayuso and Joao Almeida, alongside teammate Marc Soler, moved up into second, third and fourth overall respectively, nine seconds behind their Danish rival.
The stage was briefly affected by protestors blocking the road ahead of Israel-Premier Tech as they aimed to complete the TTT.
The protestors held up Palestinian flags and a banner reportedly reading ‘Neutrality is complicity, boycott Israel’, with police motorbikes aiming to clear the road and the riders able to move through the road block after a brief delay. The team finished the stage in 19th, 54 seconds off UAE’s time.
Israel-Premier Tech, owned by Israeli-Canadian businessman Sylvan Adams, is not officially affiliated with the state of Israel.
Both this year’s Giro d’Italia and Tour de France were disrupted by pro-Palestine protestors, while environmental protests are another common sight at grand tours. A protestor wearing a shirt reading ‘Israel out of the Tour’ ran onto the finish area of stage 11 of the Tour, before being tackled into the barrier and arrested by French police.
