Tour de la Provence: Ballerini wins stage 1

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Davide Ballerini sprinted to victory on stage 1 of the Tour de la Provence in Six-Fours-les-Plages at the end of a day animated by his Deceuninck-QuickStep teammate Julian Alaphilippe.

The world champion spent almost 70km off the front in the company of Gianni Moscon (Ineos Grenadiers) and Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), but even after being caught barely 2,000m shy of the finish, he somehow conjured up the strength to play a part in leading out Ballerini's sprint.

Ballerini still had plenty to do when the sprint unfurled, but he meted out his effort carefully on the windswept seafront in Six-Fours-les-Plages to come around French champion Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) to claim stage victory and the overall lead.

Démare, whose team had been so active in controlling the peloton throughout the stage, looked a likely winner when he bounded to the front with 150m remaining, opening a lead of a couple of bike lengths over the rest. Ballerini, however, stuck to his course along the barriers, and then accelerated around Démare within sight of the line to take the spoils. 

Nacer Bouhanni (Arkéa-Samsic) came home in third, ahead of Clement Venturini (AG2R Citroën) and neo-professional Matt Walls (Bora-Hansgrohe). After a finale that saw the peloton forced to pick a way through roads made all the more technical by traffic islands, Ballerini emerged to win the sprint.

"For sure, I was so close to the barriers, but I found the space," said Ballerini. "The first thing I have to say thanks to all the team, they did a very great job. The sprint wasn't easy. When Démare started he took I think five or six metres. I tried to take his wheel, but it was very windy in the final, but I found the right speed and I won. The wind was coming from the right. For sure I didn't have space on the left, so I needed to try to go to the right."

The win was Ballerini's fifth as a professional and his second since joining Deceuninck-QuickStep last season. For much of the afternoon, however, it was his Alaphilippe who looked best placed to deliver victory for the team. When Ciccone and Moscon forged clear over the climb of Montée du Brulat with some 69km still to go, the world champion bridged across forcefully.

They continued to collaborate smoothly thereafter, and their lead had stretched out to 1:15 by the time they took in the day's final ascent of the Montée du Camp with 27km remaining. Alaphilippe was again first to the top there, and he appeared eager to put on a show in what was his first appearance in the rainbow jersey on French roads and his first race since crashing out of the Tour of Flanders last October.

The three leaders didn't relent even when their buffer was cut to 25 seconds with 10km to go, and Alaphilippe placed another, defiant acceleration when the peloton closed to within touching distance inside the final 3km. Only Moscon could follow that last attack, which was eventually snuffed out a kilometre or so later.

Alaphilippe returned for one last encore beneath the flamme rouge, offering a turn on the front to help Kasper Asgreen as the Dane looked to tee up Ballerini for the sprint. That effort briefly appeared in vain when Démare ripped his way clear in the finishing straight, but Ballerini's patience was rewarded with stage victory.

"The strategy was to try something just after 110km so we tried with Julian, and he was really, really good," said Ballerini. "He was only caught with maybe 1.5km to go and he also gave a hand for the team, so I think he has really good legs for the general."

How it unfolded

Like last week's Étoile de Bessèges, the Tour de la Provence has a drawn a deeper field than normal thanks to the spate of cancellations and postponements outside of France during the opening months of this season. And, as in Bessèges, the intensity of the opening day's racing was a reflection of the quality of its participants.

There was no gentle introduction to the season for riders making their debuts on Thursday, with the organisation routing the peloton out of Aubagne and immediately up the category 1 Col de l'Espigoulier. Lilian Calmejane (AG2R Citroën) was quickly to the fore, breaking clear in the company of Delio Fernandez (Delko), and they crested the summit with a lead of 4:30 over the peloton.

When the gap extended to five minutes soon afterwards, however, the peloton was shaken into action, with Groupama-FDJ, B&B Hotels and Arkéa-Samsic working to pare down that early deficit. By the approach to the Montée du Brulat after 110km, the peloton was within sight of the leading duo, and the race took on a new complexion when the Deceuninck-QuickStep duo of Rémi Cavagna and Asgreen took it in turns to accelerate at the front.

Ciccone attacked over the summit of the climb with Moscon for company, and they were swiftly joined by Alaphilippe. A bunch sprint was the anticipated outcome before the start, but it was suddenly far from a foregone conclusion as the three strongmen in front combined to eek out an advantage in excess of one minute.

Even when Groupama-FDJ, UAE Team Emirates and B&B Hotels set about the business of marshalling a pursuit, Alaphilippe et al yielded little of their advantage. They still held 45 seconds as they approached the final 15km, but the scales finally tilted back in favour of the fastmen once the race hit the coast.

Ballerini proved the quickest to claim the stage honours and the striking leader's jersey, and he carries a margin of 4 seconds over Démare into stage 2. All eyes, however, will be on the rainbow jersey of Alaphilippe, who picked up an intermediate sprint bonus to lie 5th overall, 7 seconds off the lead.

"On Mont Ventoux, for sure I'll be dropped," said Ballerini, casting his mind ahead to the weekend. "But we have Julian, the world champion. He's shown already he has the legs to win this race."