Etoile de Bessèges: Samuel Leroux holds off charging field to win stage 4
Dries De Bondt takes second, Stefan Bissegger third in breakaway sprint into Méjannes-le-Clap
Samuel Leroux surprised the big-name riders and overall contenders at the Etoile de Bessèges, winning stage 4 to Méjannes-le-Clap from the early break of the day.
The Van Rysel–Roubaix rider dug deep on the climb to the finish to close a gap, hold off the peloton and win the four-rider sprint.
Leroux beat Dries De Bondt (Decathlon Ag2r), Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-EasyPost) Jonas Hvideberg and Jonas Iversby Hvideberg (both Uno-X Mobility).
Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) won the sprint behind for fifth place, just two seconds down on a tired but happy Leroux.
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) finished in the chase group and so retained the overall race lead, with just Sunday’s 10.6km individual time trial around Alès to race. He leads Axel Laurance (Alpecin-Deceuninck) by just six seconds, with eight other riders within 28 seconds.
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Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
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