Sosa wins Tour de La Provence, Alaphilippe moves ahead of Bernal

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Bahrain-Victorious lived up to their new name as their sprinter Phil Bauhaus edged out double stage winner Davide Ballerini (Deceuninck-QuickStep) in a close sprint finish on the fourth and final stage of the Tour de la Provence.

Despite leaving it late to catch the break of the day, the stage ended in a bunch sprint, with Bauhaus defeating Ballerini by around half a wheel-length, and Nacer Bouhanni (Arkea-Samsic) also close behind in third. 

On a quiet day for the GC riders, stage 3 winner and overall leader Ivan Sosa (INeos Grenadiers) finished safely in the peloton to seal overall victory. 

There was some change on the podium, though, as Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) gained enough seconds on an early intermediate sprint to move from third to second overall, swapping places with Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers). 

Given the presence of Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) and the two stage wins already achieved by Ballerini this week, Bauhaus was something of a surprise winner, but seemed in excellent form. Although Ballerini appeared ideally placed when he opened up his sprint following a lead-out from Deceuninck-QuickStep teammates Alaphilippe and Zdenek Stybar, Bauhaus managed to come from behind on the right-hand side of the road to pip him to the line.

Bouhanni chose the other side of the road to make his sprint, and remonstrated with Ballerini for supposedly squeezing him into the barriers, but the Italian did not appear to deviate from his sprinting line. 

"It was a super-fast final" a delighted Bauhaus explained at the finish. "The team did really really well today. I wanted this result really bad. I went for it, and I was happy I could pass the guys at the front

"I knew I needed to be in front with 600 meters to go, then I was strong enough to finish it off. It’s always good as a sprinter to win races. But I’m also happy for the team, it takes some pressure off us now we have that win. It gives us confidence for the next races."

Despite the flat parcours, a sprint was not always a foregone conclusion, as a four-man break that escaped at the start of the race proved difficult to catch. 

The peloton appeared to have the break under control for most of the day, but they held on stubbornly into the final 10km. Up until within the final 3km it looked like they still had a chance of surviving, but the catch was eventually made 2km from the line. 

That left Bauhaus to sprint for the stage win, while Sosa managed to avoid an incident to claim overall victory. 

How it unfolded

Beginning in Avignon and finishing with a circuit starting and ending in Salon-de-Provence, the fourth and final stage was the flattest stage of the race, meaning a bunch sprint was widely expected.

One of the things that could complicate matters for the sprinters was the possibility of strong crosswinds, but, although again very cold, the wind remained calm throughout the day. 

There was nevertheless some movement in the GC, as Alaphilippe targeted the first intermediate sprint of the day 16.5km into the stage. By being first over the line he picked up three seconds, enough to see him leapfrog Bernal into second overall.

Things settled down after this early flurry of activity, allowing four riders to get up the road and form the day’s break. They were: Tony Gallopin (AG2R Citroën Team), Luis Mas Bonet (Movistar Team), Andreas Leknessund (Team DSM) and Jérémy Leveau (Xelliss-Roubaix Lille Métropole).

The quartet did open up a gap of somewhere around five minutes, before the Ineos Grenadiers-led peloton pegged them at around 3:30 for most of the first half of the stage.

When the gap went back up to over four minutes after the riders crossed the finish line in Salon-de-Provence for the first time, Arkea-Samsic and Groupama-FDJ began to contribute to the pace-making, eyeing up a win for their respective sprinters Bouhanni and Démare. Their work began the inevitable process of bringing back the break, who were quickly brought back to within two minutes prior to the third and final small climb of the day, the category-3 La Roquemartine. 

Having picked up the most points over the previous two category three climbs, Leknessund again summited the climb first, moving him up to second overall in the mountains classification behind Filippo Conca (Lotto-Soudal), who wins the competition.  

With the advantage down to 1:20 with 25km to ride, Mas chose to chance it alone, breaking clear from his three breakaway companions. He opened up a gap of 20 seconds, but the trio behind continued to work well together and brought him back shortly after the 10km-to-go marker. 

Back in the bunch, Deceuninck-QuickStep had, having spent most of the day hidden in the bunch, joined the chase at the front of the peloton, helping to bring the gap down rapidly. However, their advantage steadied again in the final 10km, and only came down at a rate of two seconds per kilometre after the 5km to go point, so that they still had 13 seconds in hand with 3km to go. 

At this point they finally ran out of steam, with the peloton swallowing them up one kilometre later to ensure a bunch sprint.