Denmark's Anthon Charmig gave out a huge bellow of delight as he sealed his first victory in over four years on the ultra-long, rolling stage 2 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes on Monday, winning solo as the main favourites opted to conserve their energy ahead of Tuesday's crucial team time trial.
Charmig, 28, broke away from the remnants of a ten-man break on the final classified ascent, the Cat. 3 Côte de Saint-Vidal, around 12 kilometres from the line, to claim his first-ever WorldTour victory and the biggest triumph of his career.
Second, some 43 seconds down, was companion Henri-Francois Renard-Haquin (Picnic PostNL), outsprinting another component of the winning break, Vlad Van Mechelen (Bahrain Victorious) in third.
On a day featuring surprisingly little GC skirmishing despite the 3,500 metres of vertical climbing, Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) easily maintained his top spot overall, coming home in the main peloton of some 50 riders that ceded around 3:10 on Charmig.
"It's an incredible feeling for me," Charmig told race organisation TV afterwards, "I don't get that many chances each year, so right now, when I have the chance, it's an incredible feeling.
"The second-to-last climb was a bit too long for me, so I tried not to panic when the other guys [in the break] went away. But we worked together to get back and then the final climb was perfect for my characteristics, so it's really nice."
The Tour de France is at the back of everyone's minds right now and in a team of breakaway hunters like Uno-X, a win like Charmig's, taken from an original move of 10 and so close to July will hardly go unnoticed.
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"Hopefully it's good for the Tour selection," Charmig agreed with a grin, "But for now it's just about enjoying the moment."
How it unfolded
(Image credit: Getty Images)
On paper, the early couple of climbs of the Cat.2 Col de Chatain and Cat.3 Col de la Croix de Tour Aures always looked like the perfect jumping-off point for a long-distance breakaway, and so it proved. After some major skirmishing, a large move formed containing Charmig, Raúl Garcia Pierna (Movistar), Van Mechelen, Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarché), Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies), Alex Díaz (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Nadav Raisberg (NSN), Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis), Clément Braz Afonso (Groupama-FDJ) and Renard-Haquin.
The most dangerous of them on GC was Braz Afonso, a full 5:35 back and after the ten stretched out their advantage to 5:40 at the summit of the Croix de Tour Aures. EF's subsequent work on the front ensured that the break's lead was never a real threat to their stage 1 winner, Baudin.
Moving into the Rhône valley and then grinding their way up and over the longest climb of the day, the 11-kilometre Col Robert Marchand - named after the long-lived and much-admired French amateur cyclist who set several records after his 100th birthday and who died aged 109 in 2021 - there was very little change in the narrative.
That status quo began altering much more rapidly in the final 60 kilometres of the stage, however, when EF Education began to apply a lot more pressure in the peloton, and this provoked the first real division in the 10 ahead, as Veistroffer and Braz Afonso used a short but steady rise to go clear.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
In the last six months, Veistroffer has radically raised his profile as a breakaway specialist, and he dutifully plugged away on the front on the first of the key late climbs, the relentlessly rising, narrow, Cat.2 Côte des Baraques, only for Braz Afonso to drop him a quarter of the way up and blast away for the mountain points.
By the time the bunch hit the same climb, its summit at around 30 kilometres from the finish, Afonso had already claimed maximum points possible and moved into the mountains lead as a result. His 20-second advantage over a shattered break was not enough to stay ahead alone, however, and instead a lead group re-formed of Van Mechelen, García Pierna and the Frenchman.
Then Charmig, Jegat, Thomas and Renard-Haquin also managed to regain contact with the lead trio, and with seven riders enjoying a five-minute advantage on the EF-led main bunch with 20 kilometres to go, it was clear that the stage victory was going to come from the move ahead.
On the short but punchy Côte de Saint-Vidal, the lead group was quickly reduced to Charmig, Braz Afonso and García Pierna and then on the steeper second half, on a steady right-hand rising bend, Charmig truly turned on the power to go over the top alone. Looking for his first win since a stage of the Tour of Oman way back in 2022, Charmig was able to keep his nerve on the fast descent, tripling his advantage at the summit of 12 seconds to win by more than 30 seconds by the finish.
For Uno X-Mobility, enjoying a year where they've clocked up breakaway stage victories in races as prestigious as the Giro d'Italia and the Four Days of Dunkerque, successes like Tuesday's are fast becoming business as usual. For Charmig, though, stage 2's triumph represented a major raising of his game, and with the Tour fast looming on the horizon, too, just at the right moment of the season.
EF Education-EasyPost had to work hard to contain the breakaway's advantage (Image credit: Getty Images)
In the peloton, meanwhile, as the GC challengers opted for an armed truce before Tuesday, only one pre-race favourite, João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), struggled again. Already in severe difficulties on stage 1 when he lost over 24 minutes and then dropped after just 20 kilometres on stage 2, the Portuguese star clawed his way back into the peloton mid-race. However, the Baraques climb saw Almeida lose contact again, and by the finish, he had shed another 14 minutes.
For those that remain in the overall battle, and following the race's longest stage since 2003 on Monday, the overall favourites now face a crucial 28.4-kilometre team time trial on Tuesday. Nor is that stage just about winning this week's race: just as with everything else in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, this will be another vital reference point for teams for the upcoming 2026 Tour de France and its opening equivalent TTT event, too.
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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