Despite being the queen stage of the six-day Women's Tour, Friday's finish at the summit of Black Mountain in Wales did not produce the expected large difference in overall results.

Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) won stage 5, but was unable to take the lead from Grace Brown (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) as five riders finished in the same time and were tied with the Australian in the final She was unable to take the lead from Grace Brown (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) and had to settle for the final stage with the Australian.

At the finish, Longo Borghini described the 5.2km-long climb with an average gradient of 5.9% as "not a 'climb'" and pointed to the fierce headwind as the reason the race did not break away significantly.

"The gradient wasn't hard enough to split us. I believed in my sprint at the end and ran as fast as I could for 150m."

"This climb may be long, but it's not that steep. It wasn't a "climb" for me. It was mostly headwind, so the choice was really hard. In fact, I was very comfortable on the wheels. So I attacked a couple of times, tired everyone out, and waited for the others to go."

It was not only Longo Borghini who attacked in the finale, but also Liegerne Marcus (Jumbo Visma), Ashley Moolman-Pasio (SD Works), and Kristen Faulkner (BIkeExchange-Jayco) on the Welsh slope. Attempts to escape were unsuccessful.

"It was a hard day and a really tough finish. The last climb was headwindy and attacks were hard to come by," Faulkner said.

"There were a lot of attacks, but nobody tried to pull the front of those attacks.

Grace Brown, who finished third in this stage and leads the race on countback, also said the headwind was an important factor in holding the race together. Thanks to the bonus seconds she earned from yesterday's win, Brown knew that she could keep her lead if she followed Longo Borghini.

"There were too many attacks, and the wind neutralized the climb a bit, but the last kilometer was still really tough," Braun said. Elisa attacked several times with 3km to go." Elisa attacked several times from 3km to go. Then Kristen Faulkner attacked in the last kilometer. And it was a bit of a drag race to the finish."

"I was a little lost because I knew that if Elisa won, I would have to follow her through the gaps to get second place if I wanted to have a time advantage," Brown added.

"But then I realized that if I came in third, we would be on par."

The race may have lacked top climbers such as Annemiek van Fruten and Demi Vollering, but the composition of the riders on the final climb pointed to the difficulty of the stage: Ellen van Dyk (Trek-Segafredo) led the pack for the first half of the climb and and Alex Manley (Bike Exchange-Jayco), an accomplished sprinter, finished fifth in the same time as Longo Borghini.

As a result of the lack of splits on stage 5, the women's Tour will now be settled on stage 6, the flat final stage between Chipping Norton and Oxford. In what is expected to be a sprint finish, Brown, Longo Borghini, and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) (only 2 seconds behind) and their team may be betting on a bonus second tomorrow.

"We don't know yet how we will approach it, whether we will go for the sprint bonus or not. I have a strong sprinter teammate in Clara [Copponi], who won the first stage, so maybe she will take the sprint bonus."

"Right now I want to relax and enjoy the victory. We'll think about it tomorrow," concluded Longo Borghini.