Boucles de la Mayenne: Aaron Gate seals overall victory by bare minimum in latest XDS Astana 2025 triumph
Tudor Pro's Marius Mayrhofer solos to breakaway stage victory on final day of French stage race
New Zealand veteran Aaron Gate maintained his narrow but sufficient overall lead in the Boucles de la Mayenne in a tense final day of racing, capturing the latest in XDS Astana's seemingly non-stop succession of 2025 triumphs.
2023 Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race winner Marius Mayrhofer (Tudor Pro Cycling) captured the final day's honours on a lumpy stage from Javron-les-Chapelles to Laval.
After moving ahead from a break of four with 14 kilometres to go, he crossed the line alone for the second victory of his career, a 34-second cushion on Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) at the head of the bunch.
Stage 3 winner Gate, though, was victorious on GC, staying one second ahead of Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) and three seconds up on Thibaud Gruel (Groupama-FDJ) in a fraught but ultimately successful final-day battle by the 34-year-old New Zealander for the overall win.
This is XDS Astana's 18th win of the season and Gate's third for the WorldTour team since he joined them at the start of 2025.
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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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