Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe claimed a knock-out double triumph in a dramatically unpredictable first high mountain stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes on Friday as Maxim Van Gils outsprinted Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) for a summit finish victory and young Australian teammate Luke Tuckwell moved into the lead.
Part of a move of 60 riders that left all the top GC contenders trailing in a second peloton very early on the fast and furious 182-kilometre stage, Van Gils and Johannessen dropped the rest of the gigantic break at the foot of the final ascent, the category 1 Crest-Voland, with Tuckwell then bridging across.
Decathlon CMA CGM did their best to keep a hugely volatile scenario under control in the main peloton, culminating in Paul Seixas going clear at 3.5 km to go. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was the only rider able to stay with the standout young French favourite all the way to the summit.
However, the big success story was Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, whose new leader, Tuckwell, retained a hefty 3:15 advantage on Seixas and Del Toro at the summit on the stage, and who now leads by 1:12 overall on closest rival Bruno Armirail (Visma-Lease a Bike).
"I think it's one of the most beautiful days of my career," Van Gils, who crashed badly early in the season at the Clásica Jaén and fractured his pelvis, said afterwards. "I think everyone saw the crash, and I always stayed positive afterwards and kept training hard.
"It was a crazy day, we were already talking about it a few days about it, two days ago I lost six minutes in a bunch sprint to go in the breakaway."
"There were four of us [Red Bull riders] in the break, Gianni [Vermeersch] had one of his best days in the mountains, he was super strong. It was a team effort and it was so beautiful to win this stage."
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How it unfolded
60 riders made the breakaway on stage 6 (Image credit: Getty Images)
Even before racing got underway, the stage was already marked by the exit of Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), a DNS despite having won the previous day, with Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla) also not on the start line. Then, after just 15 kilometres, pandemonium broke loose as no fewer than 60 riders, just under half of the 135-strong peloton, managed to get away and open an important gap.
While none of the stage leaders constituted GC threats in principle, it was noticeable how all of the major contenders had at least one teammate ahead. To name but a few of the squads, Jumbo-Visma, fighting for Matteo Jorgenson, had three in the break - Bruno Armirail, Per Strand Hagenes, and Eduardo Affini, UAE-Team Emirates XRG had two with Benoît Cosnefroy and Diego Torres, as did Netcompany Ineos, with Dorian Godon and Josh Tarling. Tuckwell, one of four Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe riders, was the best-placed breakaway on GC, lying twelfth overall at 1:03, although yellow jersey Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost), whilst back in the second group with the other favourites, had three teammates in the front as well.
One squad was notably lacking in representation in the major break, though: Decathlon CGA CMN for Paul Seixas. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as a result, the front group was keen to try to push the top favourite out of the overall equation, and the race leaders rocketed along at an average speed of 52 kph in the first hour.
With 100 kilometres left to race, as the mini-peloton blasted onto the foot of the Col du Granier, it still had 2:30 in hand on the Decathlon-led second bunch, with Ineos having to deal with some bad news when Josh Tarling (Netcompany Ineos) crashed out.
Josh Tarling cradled his left arm with a possible collarbone fracture (Image credit: Getty Images)
The toughest ascent prior to the finale, the Granier certainly led to a few riders in the front bunch being dropped, amongst them fastmen Matteo Trentin (Tudor) and Bryan Coquard (Cofidis). But by the summit of the eight-kilometre climb, rather than the gap shrinking, it had actually widened a little despite Decathlon's best efforts. In fact, with no support barring some nominal assistance from Lidl-Trek earlier on, the 54 riders ahead pounded off the Granier still with 2:45 in hand.
The gap increased even further as the lead peloton thundered along the flatlands leading to the two final first-category ascents of the day, in what effectively developed into two team time trials in a single mass start stage. Red Bull, with the second-highest numbers in the mega-breakaway - Tudor had five - and the most GC interest, were visibly on the front of the break working for Tuckwell, but they were supported by multiple single riders from other teams as well, whilst behind EF threw their weight into the chase alongside Decathlon. Yet on a day where the Auvergne GC took a totally unexpected turn, the weariness in both groups was visible as well, with some Decathlon riders barely able to take a turn before swinging off. They hit the foot of the climb, the gap for the 53 had yawned to a whopping 4:45.
Onto the much longer of the two category 1s, the lengthy but steady Côte d'Hèry-sur-Ugine, and both groups began losing riders, almost 20 of the breakaway dropping back immediately. Meanwhile, in the 'main' bunch, Julien Bernard and Lidl-Trek, then Netcompany-Ineos' Laurens de Plus, finally provided some welcome support for a flagging Decathlon. However, Red Bull were more than aware of their chances of getting Tuckwell into the lead, so whenever the impulse faded in the break, they'd put another rider on the front to breathe new life into the move. And it worked, too - by the summit, the break might have been down to around 20, but they still had a 4:45 advantage.
At the foot of the shorter, but steeper Crest-Voland, Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost) tried to go clear from the break, with Tuckwell himself in hot pursuit, then the Australian's teammate Maxim van Gils then went for it with five kilometres to go as the Australian briefly flagged. Joined by Johannessen and finally a recovering Tuckwell, the trio continued to edge their way ahead on the upper slopes. The Australian buried himself for his Belgian teammate, conscious that a stage win was on the cards, and although Johannessen did his utmost to lead out the sprint, Van Gils was more than capable of beating the visibly frustrated Norwegian.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Meanwhile, in the main peloton, Netcompany Ineos did their utmost to keep the pace high as Decathlon swung off again, but the real change of plot occurred when, predictably enough, Seixas began a driving acceleration for the line with 3.5 kilometres to go.
Former race leader Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) had fallen behind already after a brave five-day defence, and Seixas' move proved more than sufficient to shed almost all his rivals. Jorgenson and Del Toro initially kept on Seixas back wheel, but finally the American had to throw in the towel, and the Mexican, after some encouragement from his French rival, began to collaborate with the top race favourite.
Overall, Seixas and Del Toro did not take much time, gaining a scant 13 seconds on the American rival, with Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) losing a further 11 seconds. But while Tuckwell, 21, could celebrate the biggest moment of his budding career, it remains to be seen if Seixas, now three minutes behind, can turn the tables on the Australian in the two major mountain stages to come.
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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