No one could say they didn't keep trying: despite enduring a very difficult week at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes as teammates Josh Tarling and Oscar Onley both crashed heavily – Tarling broke his collarbone, Onley narrowly avoided serious injury after falling into a ravine – Netcompany-Ineos continued to fight on hard in the French WorldTour race, placing three riders in the breakaway on the final mountain stage on Sunday.
Carlos Rodríguez and Laurens De Plus made it across first, with Kévin Vauquelin bridging across to make it three Netcompany riders in a front group of nine.
Their efforts to stay clear helped the break to start the final ascent to Plateau de Salaison ahead of the main pack. But the GC challenges in the bunch, spearheaded by the unstoppable overall and stage winner Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), left Rodríguez as Netcompany's best-placed rider on the stage in seventh.
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As for Vauquelin, he ended the day more than seven minutes down in 30th, while De Plus was even further adrift.
For all their late push for success, then, the high point of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes for Netcompany Ineos was their team time trial result, second at just nine seconds on Visma-Lease a Bike, and it potentially could have been closer had they not opted to wait for Onley when he had a mechanical mid-stage.
As for stage 9, Vauquelin explained afterwards to DirectVelo that he had made the best of a day when he wasn't in great shape, but the former Tour de France stage winner said he'd be looking to bounce back as quickly as possible.
"I went for it as best I could, even if my legs weren't super-amazing," Vauquelin said.
"It formed part of my training [too], so I've taken it like that. It's never easy to understand – you train, and sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn't. That's what makes sport so great."
Vauquelin said he had preferred to go on the offensive on the final stage, bridging across to the break after 15km of chasing.
"I'm a born attacker," he said. "I wanted to show I could be up there, push myself to the maximum and not just ride round. I gambled, I put a lot into my effort, I've lost quite a bit. But I prefer that to just staying in the peloton."
Vauquelin, who ended the race 15th overall at 12:43, and his Netcompany-Ineos teammates will now do a mini-altitude five-day training camp at L'Alpe d'Huez, where they will work on the team time trial, the Frenchman said.
After that, Vauquelin will then likely take part in the National Championships, which will be taking place in the nearby Isère region, at La-Tour-du-Pin. However, that is yet to be confirmed.
"I'll probably do the Nationals," Vauquelin concluded in comments reported by L'Équipe. "Some family time wouldn't do any harm before the three weeks at the Tour, but I've still to talk it through with the team management."
"Right now, I have to recover. I did the right kind of work this week, I pushed myself hard, and I think I can be happy about that."
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