Benoit Cosnefroy (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) took sprint victory on the second final stage of the Tour des Alpes-Maritime, amid a chaotic sprint where teammate Aurélien Paret-Peintre took second spot ahead of Vincenzo Albanese (Arkéa B&B Hotels).
Vincenzo Albanese's two third-place finishes led him to second place in the overall standings with Cosnefroy enjoying a GC win to add to his stage victory, holding a two-second margin over the Italian, with teammate Paret-Peintre coming in third overall.
Speaking at the finish, Cosnefroy said "It was not an easy sprint but I had confidence in myself and Paret-Peintre was doing a great job. And I believe that it was just us in the end."
"I didn't race here last year but my team is here every year so I had the information I needed but it's the first time I'm here," he added.
"We played our cards with many riders taking seconds away from my competitors. I hid and played my sprint."
Cosnefroy's win came after a day replete with breakaways and solo attacks, where the major teams only narrowly managed to bring the pack together for the final sprint.
The second stage of the Riviera race was the far harder of the two, taking in four categorised climbs including the 1st Cat Col de Châteauneuf de Contes.
Matteo Milan (Lidl - Trek Future Racing) and Melvin Crommelinck (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) kicked early in the stage and established a gap over the main group.
They were allowed room to form a breakaway - joined by three other riders to form a group of five including Noah Detalle (Bingoal WB Devo), Axel Narbonne Zuccarelli (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) and Maxime Jarnet (Van Rysel - Roubaix).
The five breakaway never established a large gap, hovering around one minute and held a slim lead over the 2nd cat climb of Carros, where Milan was dropped leaving four out front.
A second breakaway group peeled off the main peloton containing Ewen Costiou (Arkéa–B&B Hotels), Jakob Fuglsang (Israel–Premier Tech), Lars Van Den Berg (Groupama - FDJ), Gorka Izagirre (Cofidis), Sean Flynn (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Steffen De Schuyteneer ( Lotto Dstny Dev), Nans Peters (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale), Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility), Anders Johannessen Halland (Uno-X Mobility) and Louka Matthys (Bingoal WB).
The two breakaway groups merged to create a large lead group that stretched out to a gap of 1:30 over the peloton with 40km remaining.
Ewen Costiou and Steffen De Schuyteneer then made a brave two-man attack form that breakaway and held their gap out front until the final 5km, pulled back on the slopes of the Montée de la Sine by the main peloton - where Israel Premier-Tech were battling for Ethan Vernon’s sprint win.
However, Costiou made a surprising counter-attack which for a moment looked as though it might hold. Much like stage 1, a brave breakaway was a treat for viewers, but not enough to win the stage.
The group came together and the stage was set for a sprint finale.
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