Tour de l'Ain: Jefferson Alexander Cepeda clinches overall while Rémi Capron wins final hilly stage

Rémi Capron (Van Rysel-Roubaix) earned his first victory of the season in a surprise sprint win on stage 3 of the Tour de l’Ain on Monday. In a reduced 10-rider bunch, the 24-year-old held off Tom Donnewirth (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Nicolas Breuillard (St Michel-Mavic-Auber 93), who finished second and third, respectively.

Jefferson Alexander Cepeda (EF Education-EasyPost), who took the yellow leader’s jersey with the stage 2 win, finished just four seconds off his pace in 11th and secured the overall title. Capron moved into second overall, 24 seconds back, while Stefano Oldani (Cofidis) rounded out the GC podium in third.

EF Education-EasyPost controlled the pace of the peloton and pulled back multiple attacks on the final circuit, riders Archie Ryan, Hugh Carthy, Simon Carr, Jack Rootkin-Gray and Jardi van der Lee launching Cepeda into the front group on the descent to the finish. 

“The team rode really well. All of the guys did a great job. We saw that they did lots of work in the finale and before that controlling the race, so it’s great," Cepeda said after the race. 

"Now I’m going to enjoy this and continue preparing for my next objectives. My season wasn’t so great at the start, but I had some time to recover in my country and now I’m even more motivated."

The third and final day of Tour d’lAin departed Lagnieu with eight categorised climbs looming large across the 153 kilometres. The mega-climbing contest began with back-to-back summits of Col de Montrater (6.6km at 3.3%) and Côte de Mérignat (2km at 5.8%) in the first 21km.

The peloton remained together across the opening climbs, with KOM leader Robin Plamondon (CIC U Nantes Atlantique), Célestin Guillon (Van Rysel-Roubaix) and Cepeda not taking part for points in the early going, just a single-point separating the trio in the mountain classification standings. However, Groupama-FDJ’s Reuben Thompson took the opportunity on the second climb to attack and moved into third place by grabbing 7 points.

There were still no big attacks until the peloton began a clockwise circuit from Poncin with 108km to go. Around two clockwise laps with a trio of climbs - Côte de Corveissiat (3.8km at 3.3%), Côte de Matafelon (3.1km at 4%) and Col du Berthiand (4.8km at 6%) - the pace quickened.

With 96km to go on the slopes of the Matafelon climb for the first pass, three riders opened a gap from the main field - Geoffrey Bouchard (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Rémi Lelandais (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and Maxime Jarnet (Van Rysel-Roubaix). 

For a second day in a row Van Rysel-Roubaix put a rider in the breakaway, but it was LeLandais who scooped up the majority of the KOM points to move into that lead. EF Education-EasyPost set the pace of the peloton behind, which gave the trio a gap of just over a minute until the EF team began to cut down the time with 40km and two climbs to go.

Headed to the penultimate climb, Maximilien Juillard (Van Rysel-Roubaix) joined Rémi Cavagna (Movistar) to chase the lead group. Just ahead, Lelandais had a mechanical and dropped off the front, and was passed by Juillard and Cavagna who took his place in the breakaway with the other two riders. Lelandais would secure the KOM title at the end of his ride.

With 25km to go, only Juillard and Cavagna remained at the front, and each rider finally relented until the peloton swept away any remnants of the breakaway on the slopes of the Col du Berthiand a second time.

On the sharp descent headed into Ile Chambod, several riders attacks flew from both EF Education and Decathlon AG2R Mondiale. Capron took the surprise win from a 10-rider lead group, while Cepeda finished just four seconds off his pace to secure the GC victory.

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