Remco Evenepoel secures Volta ao Algarve Victory with Fastest Final Time Trial

20 year old Evenpoel secured overall victory by setting the fastest time over his main rivals all within 3 seconds coming into the final time trial

The 20.3 km individual time trial course was undulating with a few mild climbs but essentailly was a fast course.

Yves Lampaert (Deucenink-Quick Step) 24:53 set the earliest fastest time until Team Ineos's Rohan Dennis went faster at 24:17.

The final 5 riders on GC were only separated by 3 seconds, Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Deceuninck-Quickstep, Daniel Martin (Irl) Israel Start-Up Nation, Maximilian Schachmann, (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe, Miguel Angel Lopez Moreno (Col) Astana Pro Team and Rui Costa (Por) UAE Team Emirates.

But in the finale Remco Evenepoel went fastest in a time 24m 8s beating Dennis by 9 seconds with Sefan Kung third.

He said before the podium ceremony, "I’m really happy, I knew it was just 20km full gas and I started quite fast and then I knew that in the hilly sections, on the down hills, that I had to recover well, so that’s what I did. I just went all out. The communication with the car was perfect, I knew every corner, every hole in the road. I’m very happy."

"I’m working hard for my next goal in two months time, I’m not in the best shape yet but I still have time, there's still a long way to go but I’m already happy with where I’m at now."

"I said I wanted to come the Algarve. I did my very best and performed as well as possible. Next up is Tirreno-Adriatico and we'll see how we go there. It's about going step by step, race by race, then we'll see in the end what the seasons brings," he said.

VIDEO: 2020 Volta ao Algarve Stage 5 Highlights

2020 Volta ao Algarve Stage 5 Top 10

1 Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Deceuninck-Quickstep 0:24:08
1 Rohan Dennis (Aus) Team Ineos 0:24:17
2 Stefan Küng (Swi) Groupama-FDJ 0:00:09
3  Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:00:28
4 Miguel Angel Lopez Moreno (Col) Astana Pro Team 0:00:28
5 Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol) Team Ineos 0:00:28
6 Patrick Bevin (NZl) CCC Team 0:00:28
7 Yves Lampaert (Bel) Deceuninck-Quickstep 0:00:36
8 Nils Politt (Ger) Israel Start-Up Nation 0:00:37
9 Mads Schmidt Würtz (Den) Israel Start-Up Nation 0:00:38

2020 Volta ao Algarve Overall GC Top 10

1 Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Deceuninck-Quickstep 19:23:42
2 Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:00:38
3 Miguel Angel Lopez Moreno (Col) Astana Pro Team 0:00:39
4 Rui Costa (Por) UAE Team Emirates 0:00:56
5 Tim Wellens (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:01:17
6 Simon Geschke (Ger) CCC Team 0:01:18
7 Lennard Kämna (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:01:26
8 Bauke Mollema (Ned) Trek-Segafredo 0:01:31
9 João Almeida (Por) Deceuninck-Quickstep 0:01:40
10 Amaro Antunes (Por) W52/FC Porto 0:01:57