Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) continued his impressive run of results, winning the Faun-Ardèche Classic with a stellar solo attack with 46km to go on the Mur de Royes, adding to his tally of a stage win and second overall at the Volta ao Algarve with the victory.
When Visma-Lease a Bike's Matteo Jorgenson could not hold onto his wheel on the Mur de Royes, Seixas forged ahead with a confidence that far exceeds that of most 19-year-olds
Looking as energetic as Tadej Pogačar and as effortless as Mathieu van der Poel, Seixas built onto his advantage as the kilometres counted down. He even gained time on his pursuers on the last ascent of the Val d'Enfer, 40 kilometres into his solo attack, and only let up slightly in the final two kilometres when the win was in the bag.
It was a cool and drizzly day for the 26th edition of the Faun-Ardèche Classic, and with 11 climbs along the 187.6km circuit around Guilherand-Granges, the breakaway was never given much time.
Alexy Faure Prost (Picnic-PostNL), Geoffrey Bouchard and Theo Lévêque (TotalEnergies), Eivind Broholt Fougner (Unibete Rose Rockets), Victor Guernalec (CIC), Léandre Huck (Van Rysel Roubaix), and Jaakko Hänninen and Laurens Huys (Nice Metropole) escaped in the first 20 kilometres and could only manage two minutes before being brought back to just over one.
Huck crashed out of the move with 114km to go, and when Faure Prost attacked with 83km to go on the Col des Boscs, Hänninen was dropped, too.
The escape was further reduced on the Val d'Enfer with Fougner and Lévêque clipping off the front. Shattering the breakaway only led to them being caught with 45km to go.
On the Mur de Royes, a 6.8km climb averaging 7.3%, Seixas accelerated, bringing with him at first Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike), but Christen and Martinez soon lost touch, and then Jorgenson had to let go.
Jorgenson, Christen and Martinez kept chasing but were 48 seconds behind the lone Frenchman at the base of the descent and were more in danger of being caught by the chase behind containing Egan Bernal (Ineos), Roman Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ), and Louis Barre (Visma-Lease a Bike) at 1:03 than they were of catching Seixas.
On the next trip over the Val d'Enfer, the second chase was absorbed by the remainder of the peloton and Seixas only improved his advantage over the Jorgenson chase, holding 1:05 with 25km to go.
The margin went out to 1:48 at the finish after the chasing trio put on the brakes in a tactical sprint for the podium. Christen proved the quickest over Martinez with Jorgenson missing the podium.
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