Filippo Ganna cruised to victory in the prologue of the Tour de la Provence, while Ethan Hayter completed an Ineos Grenadiers one-two in Berre-L’Étang with an assured display on the 7.1km course.
Hayter was in the hot seat by the time Ganna rolled down the start ramp, and although the world time trial champion would ultimately beat him by 12 seconds, the Briton had reason to be pleased with his first outing of the new season.
“I was quite surprised with my second place,” Hayter said afterwards, adding that he always expected Ganna to better his time.
“I had a strong feeling he’d be better today and I think he deserved it. He’s a great teammate. Of course, he’s an example. When you have the best time triallist in the world in your team, there’s obviously a lot to learn. He’s a great role model.”
Hayter enjoyed a sparkling 2021 season, underlining his quality across a variety of terrains with overall victory at the Tour of Norway and stage wins at the Tour of Britain, Ruta del Sol and Settimana Coppi e Bartali. For good measure, he ended his campaign with victory in the time trial at the British Championships.
The 23-year-old’s versatility would ordinarily make him a contender across all four days of the Tour de la Provence, but he noted that he had only recently returned to full training after contracting COVID-19 last month.
“I’m happy, I only had two weeks of training since I had COVID,” he said. “It wasn’t my best performance, so I’m happy with second place and I’m still improving.”
Although Hayter impressed in the sprints at last year’s Tour of Britain, he suggested that new teammate Elia Viviani would be Ineos’ prime option on Friday’s opening road stage of the Tour de la Provence.
“We’ve got a good team here, it’s going to be a good week to get back into racing for me,” he said. “There’s a flat stage tomorrow, maybe with some wind, and hopefully it will be a sprint for Elia, we’ll see how the finish goes. The day after is kind of unsure, it could be quite hard or it could be a sprint like last year. And for the last stage we have [Richard] Carapaz, who is probably the favourite for a long climb like that. We’ll see what we can do, and we’ll have some fun.”
Carapaz placed 53rd in Thursday’s time trial, 38 seconds behind Ganna, though the general classification is likely to be decided in Sunday’s tough summit finish at Montagne de Lure. The Ecuadorian conceded 21 seconds to Julian Alaphilippe (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) and 7 seconds to 2020 winner Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic), but he gained 26 seconds on defending champion Ivan Sosa (Movistar).
Carapaz had missed the final time trial of Étoile de Bessèges after crashing during the race, and he declared himself satisfied to be back in the saddle here.
“I took a few days to recover well and then I did the best I could for the moment,” said Carapaz, who confirmed that he remains slated to lead Ineos Grenadiers at the Giro d’Italia in May.
“We’re focused on getting to the Giro in good form. After Provence, I’ll go home to Ecuador for the National Championships and then I’ll do Tirreno-Adriatico and the Volta a Catalunya before the Giro.”
