Tour of Japan Stage 5 finished atop Mount Fuji, providing an opportunity for strong continental-level riders to showcase their talent on a tough mountain-top finish.
Tour of Japan Stage 5 2025 profile
It was the queen stage of the Tour of Japan with the traditional finish up Mount Fuji (11.65 km at 10.2%), where the strongest Japanese teams, UKYO and Victoire Hiroshima, fought for victory and didn’t leave a chance to the development team of Intermarché, the Italian ProTour team Solution Tech – Vini Fantini, and strong continental-level teams. Nahom Zeray had lost 7 minutes on previous stages and was looking after his teammate Alessandro Fancellu on the climb, who had attacked and dropped everyone from the leading group.
Zeray produced a very high-level performance for a continental rider, doing 5.89 ᵉW/kg for 41:54 minutes, equivalent to 6.20 ᵉW/kg at sea level, as Mount Fuji starts at high elevation. Despite finishing 11th in the Tour de l’Avenir GC and showing consistency in local Italian races, Zeray did not get promoted to the Q36.5 elite team after their development team was disbanded following the 2024 season.
Zeray’s teammate Alessandro Fancellu finished 2nd with 5.86 ᵉW/Kg for 42 minutes and became the new race leader. The first five riders were from Japanese continental teams, showing how high the level is in Asian races on hard mountain top finishes.
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
AloJapan.com