Route d'Occitanie: Sonny Colbrelli wins stage 2

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Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain McLaren) picked up his first win of the season when he finished a good bike length clear of his rivals at the finish of the second stage of the Route d’Occitanie at Cap Découverte after breakaway Emil Vinjebo (Riwal Readynez) had been reeled in just a kilometre short of glory. Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) finished best of the rest, second place enabling him to keep the leader’s jersey, with Total Direct Energie’s Niccolò Bonifazio in third.

“It’s good to win in my first race back and it gives me and the team a lot of confidence before the big races that are ahead such as Milan-Sanremo,” said Colbrelli. “I had a bit of mechanical problem early on in the stage, but the mechanic managed to sort that out and then the hardest part were the conditions. Yesterday the heat was intense, today the wind was the issue and made it a very hard stage.”

Coquard admitted the strongest man had won on the day. “I was a bit too far back coming into the final kilometre and we had to make a big effort to move up with 500 metres remaining. Colbrelli went very early but he was very strong. I was on his wheel but that’s where I stayed,” said the Frenchman.

The day’s break was instigated soon after the start by Vinjebo, who was soon joined by five other riders: Nikodemus Holler (Bike Aid), Samuel Leroux (Natura4ever-Roubaix), Fumiyuki Beppu (Nippo-Delko), Michal Paluta (CCC) and Ibai Azurmendi (Euskaltel-Euskadi).

Crossing the first of three category-three climbs after 27km their advantage had already reach eight-and-a-half minutes, with race leader Coquard’s B&B Hotels team and sprint rival Elia Viviani’s Cofidis setting the pace in the bunch. Until close to halfway, this gap remained at a still very healthy seven minutes before the sprinters’ teams began to make inroads.

Passing through the finish for the first time with 50km remaining, the escapees’ lead had been trimmed back to four-and-a-half minutes. When Total Direct Energie and Bahrain McLaren also added their weight to the chase, the gap finally began to tumble on this circuit, falling to a minute with 15km remaining. As the bunch closed in, Vinjebo was the last to yield approaching the finish, his hopes erased as the bunch blew past him with just a kilometre to the line.

The race’s focus changes completely tomorrow. After two stages where the sprinters have dominated, the climbers will come to the fore on a tough day in the Pyrenees featuring three first-category climbs, including the finish at the Col de Beyrède. 

“The first two days were mostly about staying safe and protecting our climbers and Egan [Bernal], so it’s all good so far,” said Ineos DS Gabriel Rasch. “Tomorrow is the GC day, a big day for us. We’re going to ride it as we want. We want a hard race and we’ve got the team to do that. I think we can dictate things and hopefully we’ll get a good result on the back of that.”

Results

General classification