Tour de la Provence leader Matthew Riccitello came through the last day's racing unscathed and incident-free to claim a notable victory both for himself and for home side Decathlon CMA CGM, whilst a late attack from a break saw Axel Laurance clinch the final stage win for Ineos Grenadiers.
After a four-and-a-half-hour dash across the plains of southern France at a sizzling average speed of over 45kmh, Riccitello came home 34th and safely ensconced in the main pack, 14 seconds down on solo stage winner Laurance.
Ineos could not dislodge Riccitello from the top spot. But they got a considerable consolation prize on Sunday when Laurance broke away with Daniel Årnes (Van Rysel Roubaix) from a day-long move of nine, then gained just enough advantage when the two opted to go different ways around a roundabout to stay away for the day's win.
"It was definitely a stressful day with the wind and a big strong break up the road, but the team was super-strong," Riccitello said afterwards. "We were perfect all day."
"I say 'we' - all I had to do was sit on the wheels and let the rest of the guys do what they did, it was incredible."
"All day they were riding on the front and keeping me safe, it was perfect, and just to start the season like this with Decathlon CMA CGM is a really good feeling."
"It's been a really long time since my last win,"- in May, 2024 at the Tour of Norway, "but it never happened," added Laurance. "So to get that in my first race this year is great."
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"Everybody in the break told me I was the strongest and the fastest, so nobody wanted to finish with me, but I believed in myself, I stayed at the back, saw an attack and went for it."
"Then in the final I went left for the roundabout, saw the group were coming back, so I just let him [Årnes] first, then I went right, it was really a surprise for him, then I just went all in for the finish."
"Everybody thinks I'm the fastest in these breaks, but I always need to find another solution to win."
How it unfolded
The combination of an extremely long stage, hilly start and flat finale would have seemed likely to encourage a mass breakaway. But as matters turned out, it wasn't until a full quarter of the stage that racing really began in earnest.
What formed though, was not a break, but of echelons, just as the hills were receding in the stage's rear view mirror and the peloton faced almost 150 kilometres of flat roads.
It was still a very long way from the line for such splits to really gel, though, and finally a nine rider move emerged, containing one serious GC dangerman, Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek), just 2:22 down on Riccitello.
Decathlon were not present in the break, which also contained Victor Loulergue (Groupama-FDJ United), Laurance, Simon Carr (Cofidis), Lorrenzo Manzin (TotalEnergies), Peter Jannis (Unibet Rose Rockets), Maxime Jarnet and Årnes (both Van Rysel Roubaix) and Clément Davy (Nice Métrople Côte d'Azur). But with Oomen being in the move, Riccitello's were more or less obliged to keep a close watching brief on those ahead.
It came as no surprise, then, that the break was never allowed more than three minutes margin, and Oomen picking up bonus seconds in the first of two sprints at Cheval-Blanc made it amply clear what was at stake. Decathlon, then unsurprisingly kept the tempo, and as the break and bunch hit a series of narrower, winding roads in the closing 20 kilometres their gap dropped to just over a minute.
Once Oomen's GC threat had evaporated, although he still snatched a second bonus sprint to try and move into the top 10 on GC, Decathlon moved into disruption mode, ensuring the break stayed away and so no more attacks would then threaten Riccitello's advantage. There was an attempt in the break by Carr, not the best sprinter in the group, to try and split things apart and take a smaller group clear. But then as they moved on a broader road running next to the River Rhone, the nine reformed again and had a minute in hand on Decathlon's steady but not emphatic chase.
Davy opened up the throttle eight kilometres from the line, to no avail, and the fate of the break, clearly visible on long, open roads, was hanging in the balance by this point. Laurance, conscious of his role as a top favourite for any sprint, kept to the back and he responded quickly when a dangerous move by Årnes found some space.
With his Van Rysel Roubaix teammate Jarnet watching the remainder of the break, the scenario was definitely to the duo's advantage. Decathlon began driving more seriously as Kern Pharma also helped out, but with 40 seconds to the two ahead, it was essentially too late for a stage win.
Confusion over a roundabout played into Laurance's hands, as Årnes veered left and stayed off course, whilst Laurance was able to return to the correct, right-hand lane with just over a kilometre to go. Laurence was suddenly clear and alone, with Årnes chasing hard.
Laurance, though, stomped out of the saddle, blasting home alone of the remnants of the break containing a visibly disgruntled Van Rysel rider to claim his first win since signing for Ineos in 2025. The peloton had closed the gap to just 15 seconds by the finish, but Riccitello could finally breathe easy, his first stage win overall with Decathlon CMA CGM safely in the bag.
"I was already excited to be in the team, and to start the season like this is really good for everybody, I think," Riccitello, fifth in last year's Vuelta a España, concluded about his first win since taking a stage and the overall of the Sibiu Tour overall last summer.
"It was a team effort, definitely not just me, and they were super-strong today. It was incredible to be a part of this."
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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