Quintana wins Tour de la Provence

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Owain Doull (Team Ineos) won the breakaway sprint to secure the finale stage 4 of Tour de la Provence in Aix-en-Provence on Sunday. Matthias Brändle (Israel Start-Up Nation) was the first to start the four-man sprint but it only served as a sling-shot for Doull to come around and take the stage win. Ian Garrison (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was third and Romain Combaud (Nippo Delko One Provence) finished fourth.

In a thrilling finale, the breakaway arrived to the finish line just seconds ahead of a charging reduced peloton that included Tour de la Provence’s overall winner Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic).

The Colombian moved into the overall lead after winning the previous day’s stage on Mont Ventoux, and won the overall title ahead of Astana teammates Alexandr Vlasov at 1:04 down and Alexey Lutsenko at 1:28 down.

"I think around the 30km mark when we still had four minutes I thought we could have a really good chance," said Doull after the finish. "When we stayed together on the climb I knew the run-in – it was really fast from last year. 

"At around 2-3km to go I knew we'd stay away and then it starts to get a bit tactical and thinking of the sprint.

"This is my first professional win in Europe. It's nice to get the team's first win and a good time before the Classics."

How it unfolded

The final stage of the race offered the peloton 170.5km from Avignon to Aix-en-Provence. The stage wasn’t straight forward and included three categorised climbs; Col de 3 Termes (31km), Col de l’Aire dei Masco (96.5km), La Cride (154km), followed by a smaller climb and descent into the finish.

After 50km of fast racing a breakaway finally cleared the peloton. The four-man move included Ian Garrison (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Mathias Brändle (Israel Start-Up Nation), Romain Combaud (Nippo Delko One Provence) and Owain Doull (Team Ineos).

They gained four minutes and that time gap held steady for the duration of the stage. Even by the time they approached the second of two intermediate sprints, with 30km to go, they still had 3:30 minutes.

Arkéa-Samsic’s overall leader Nairo Quintana relied on the superb work of his teammates to keep the race under control during the last half of the stage. Astana had riders in the second and third places in GC with Vlasov and Lutsenko, respectively, and helped in the pace-setting, as did EF Pro Cycling with Hugh Carthy in fourth overall. 

EF Pro Cycling did much of the work into the final climb of La Cride (2.6km at 5.7 per cent) but the breakaway still had 1:45 with 17km to go.

It wasn’t until Astana took control at the front of the field that the gap to the break dropped quickly, down to 45 seconds over the top of the climb. A strong group of 30 riders – mainly climbers – emerged with the likes of Lutsenko, Vlasov and Carthy along with Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ). 

Quintana looked comfortable in the mix, allowing the stage to pan out, while he cruised down into Aix-en-Provence having all but sewn-up the overall victory – barring any mishaps along the way.

It was Sunweb, Jumbo-Visma and Cofidis that led the reduced group through the final 15km of mostly gradual, but fast, descending into Aix-en-Provence.

The breakaway of Garrison, Brändle, Combaud and Doull played no games of cat-and-mouse, but rather pushed on in the closing kiloemtres trying to scrap out as much time as they could ahead of the field. 

The gap dropped to 19 seconds with under 3km to go, but their doubts about staying away disappeared when they hit the final kilometre with 10 seconds to spare.

Brändle was the first to start his sprint and Doull latched onto his rear wheel and then jumped around him to sprint across the line with the stage victory, just seconds ahead of the charging peloton.

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