Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) all managed to spectacularly end their chances of winning the fifth stage of Tirreno-Adriatico by bizarrely missing a right-turn 5km from the finish line.
With 8km left of the stage, Evenepoel launched an attack from the peloton in an attempt to catch up with the leading group a minute-and-a-half up the road. Tadej Pogačar immediately followed in order to not squander any time to his GC rival, while Jonas Vingegaard also managed to bridge the gap and follow the two race favourites.
Up front was seven riders, all desperately trying to maintain the gap between themselves and the peloton to potentially win the stage. However, triumph from this group seemed unlikely, considering the trio of elite-level riders behind them had managed to bring the deficit to below a minute in just a couple of kilometres.
What transpired in a crazy twist of fate, though, was Evenepoel, Pogačar and Vingegaard carrying on straight down a road for 50m, when in fact they should have turned right. It seemed the trio missed the marshal directions and signals telling them to turn right up a steep climb instead of continuing down a flat road.
Consequently, this opened the door for Warren Barguil (Arkéa Samsic) to power away from the competition of a 21% gradient stretch of climb, the Frenchman building up a 25 second gap behind him, which he duly took advantage of.
Dealing with the stone-paved streets of Fermo, Barguil reached the Piazza del Popolo to cross the finish line first in an exceptional ride.
Pogačar and Vingegaard still managed to finish a respectable sixth and seventh though, 28 seconds behind Barguil, while Evenepoel came home in ninth in the same time.
Consequently, Pogačar still leads Evenepoel by nine seconds in the GC, with two more stages of Tirreno-Adriatico still to come over the weekend.
