Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) defended his Paris-Tours title in a bunch sprint.
The Frenchman started his sprint early after a long, strong lead-out from Groupama-FDJ teammate Stefan Küng, but just about managed to hold off Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) and Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), who were second and third.
The race came back together for a bunch sprint after the last remnants of early breakaways were swallowed up by the peloton just before the final kilometre.
The Frenchman is in the tail end of a successful 2022 season that included three stage wins and the points classification in the Giro d'Italia, and stages in Route d'Occitanie, Tour de Pologne as well as the GP d'Isbergues last month and numerous podium finishes.
Groupama-FDJ had been reluctant to chase the breakaway, as their rider Olivier Le Gac was present. With just under 10km to go, he went clear from the rest of the group (which also featured Sam Bennett), along with Alex Kirsch (Trek-Segafredo) and Kim Heiduk (Ineos Grenadiers), and together the three of them bridged up to the sole survivor of the day's original break, Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X), a few kilometres later.
This quartet maintained hope of staying clear right up until the final couple of kilometres, when the peloton at last brought them to within 10 seconds, and had them in their sights on the long, straight roads towards the finish.
With the catch made, Groupama-FDJ took control of the peloton and set about leading out Demare, with Küng setting him up perfectly.
It was a trademark long-range sprint from Demare, who had the power to maintain his speed and edge Theuns and Bennett for victory.
The race was notable for being the last in the career of Philippe Gilbert (Lotto-Soudal), who counts two Paris-Tours victories among his illustrious palmares. He finished in the peloton to place 17th.
It was also the last race of former Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders winner Niki Terpstra (TotalEnergies), although he endured a more difficult day, crashing early on.
How it unfolded
Blue skies greeted the peloton for the 116th edition of Paris-Tours — a blessing considering the treacherous gravel roads that awaited the riders in the race's final third.
Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X), Clément Carisey (Go Sport - Roubaix Lille Métropole) and Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hotels-KTM) instigated the day's break by getting up the road and were joined by Romain Cardis (St Michel-Auber 93) and Maël Guégan (Team U Nantes Atlantique).
They were allowed a gap that reached a maximum of almost seven minutes by a peloton aware that they had plenty of time to bring them back later.
However, the atmosphere in the peloton was far from relaxed, as the race was marred by multiple crashes throughout the day. Benoît Cosnefroy (Ag2r Citroën) and former winner Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) went down within the first few kilometres, as did Niki Terpstra (TotalEnergies), riding his last ever race as a professional, with Ben Turner in another incident halfway into the race.
The crashes then intensified as the first of the race's gravel sectors approached. Two occurred at high speeds each towards the front of the peloton at 69km and then 66km from the finish, with Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) and Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Soudal) among those to go down.
On that gravel sector, Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Kim Heiduk (Ineos Grenadiers) rode clear from the peloton, and a 7-man chase formed behind them consisting of Olivier Le Gac (Groupama-FDJ), Tim van Dijke (Jumbo-Visma), Antoine Raugel (Ag2r Citroën), Rui Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates), Luca Mozzato (B&B Hotels-KTM), Clément Russo (Arkéa-Samsic) and Alex Kirsch (Trek-Segafredo).
Le Gac, Russo and Kirsch went clear from the rest and bridged up to Bennett and Heiduk 46.5km from the finish, at which point there was yet another nasty crash back in the peloton, where four Jumbo-Visma riders were held up.
The other four riders from the chasing group were swallowed up by the peloton, and there were multiple short-lived attacks from other riders in an attempt to break out of the peloton.
With 40km to go, the break's advantage was 1-50 over the chasing quintet, who had a 45-second lead over the peloton.
While the break's advantage continued to plummet, the gap between the quintet and the peloton remained stable, and they stayed together despite an upping of the pace from Heiduk on the Côte de la Rochère, 28km from the finish.
The lead group was reduced to just Guégan, Cardis and Abrahamsen after Gougeard was dropped on the Côte de la Rochère, and Carisey punctured.
With 20km to go, the peloton fractured, with about 14 riders breaking clear, including Arnaud Demare and a number of his Groupama-FDJ teammates. But a lack of organisation saw the rest of the peloton come back to them 15km from the finish.
Abrahamsen accelerated on the final gravel sector, 13km from the finish, and succeeded in dropping Guégan and Cardis. His lead over the chasers was still falling, however, and stood at just ten seconds by the Côte de Rochecorbon, 9km from the finish.
On that climb, Le Gac, Heiduk and Kirsch attacked out of the chasing group to go clear, and, after some remonstrating by Heiduk, worked together.
The trio caught Abrahamsen 7km from the finish, but only had a lead of 17 seconds over the peloton by this point.
The peloton failed to make any inroads in the following kilometres but did ultimately up the pace enough to make the catch with just over one kilometre left to ride.
Stephen Puddicombe is a freelance writer based in Bristol. He has written for Cyclingnews since 2020, and has covered cycling professionally as a freelancer since 2013, writing for outlets such as Rouleur, Cycling Weekly and Cycle Sport, among other publications. He is the author of The World of the Tour de France, published by Sona Books. Outside of cycling he is a passionate cinephile, and a long-suffering Spurs fan.
