With suspected echelons never materialising as the nervous peloton rode towards the finale in Albacete, a touch of wheels from Mads Würtz Schmidt (Israel Start-Up Nation) near the front brought down a massive group of riders with bodies all across the road.
The rest of the unaffected group slowed momentarily in a show of respect, but with the finish so close had to speed up again shortly after to compete for the finish, with Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) winning his second stage of the race to take the green jersey ahead of Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep).
Taaramäe was amongst the fallen in the crash for the second day in a row, causing him to finish 2 minutes and 21 seconds behind Philipsen and slip out of the red jersey and top-10 in the general classification as Elissonde took over the lead, five seconds ahead of defending champion Primoz Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) in second.
Starting the day 25 seconds back from top spot, Elissonde couldn't help but feel for Taaramäe as he admitted the unfortunate situation didn't leave him wanting to celebrate.
“I’m a bit sorry for him, he’s a really nice guy, but that’s cycling,” Elissonde said of Taaramäe after the stage.
“This is not the way I wanted to take the jersey but we know in cycling when there is wind, there is risk.
“25 seconds, you can lose it with an echelon also, so you had to be vigilant. OK, I don’t like it, it was not a pleasure, but at the end of the day, I cannot do anything else. It’s how it is.”
“It was very nervous today with the possibility of echelons. You never want crashes, but we all knew there was a possibility of splits today, so we were all vigilant. I would have preferred to have taken the jersey à la pédale rather than because of someone else’s misfortune, but I just did my own race.”
The Frenchman acknowledged it was nice to be on top regardless of the circumstances, but it would be difficult to maintain and keep Roglič from red in Stage 6's uphill finish to Cullera.
“It’s still incredible to wear this jersey," Elissonde said.
"After riding the Tour and the Olympics, I took it easy. The team told me: ‘Kenny, you will go to the Vuelta and you will see day by day.’ And look, that’s cycling. It’s incredible. One day like this, it’s super cool, no?
“You can’t forget that a rider like Primož Roglič is only at 5 seconds, and he’ll be a very tough opponent tomorrow. It’ll be difficult to defend 5 seconds against a rider like that, but I’ll fight hard and try to ride smart. Tonight we’ll celebrate the jersey with the team and tomorrow will be a nice day in red.”
On the other side of the coin, Taaramäe was honest in his assessment of losing the lead after spending two days in red with a win atop the Picon Blanco in stage 3, his focus now turning to the king of the mountains battle.
"Two days in the red jersey, that was good for me," he said after stage 5.
"It was nice to experience that and I’m not so sad to lose it. I would have lost it tomorrow or the day after so it’s not a big deal. We’ll see day by day but I think I can defend the polka-dot jersey more than the leader’s jersey."
La Vuelta continues with a 158.3 kilometre stage from Requena to an uphill finish on Alto de la Montaña de Cullera that looks perfect for breakaway hopefuls. Watch the action live from 11pm (AEST) on SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand and 10:50pm (AEST) on the SBS ŠKODA Tour Tracker.
