Tour Poitou-Charentes: Dorian Godon takes final stage on uphill charge to Poitiers

Dorian Godon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) won his second stage of the Tour Poitou-Charentes en Nouvelle Aquitaine on the stiff uphill finish into Poitiers .

The French road national champion distanced Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) and Giovanni Lonardi (Polti VisitMalta) in the final 50 metres of the bunch sprint for his fourth victory of the season.

Stage 3 winner Samuel Leroux (TotalEnergies) held on for the GC victory, having gone into Friday's final day of racing with a 20-second edge over Godon. The 30-year-old TotalEnergies rider survived in the bunch finish to carry a five-second margin over the stage winner. Nicolas Milesi (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) held on to third overall, 22 seconds back.

For 182 of the 186 kilometres on the decisive stage, a breakaway of five riders charged across the course in southwest France before the charging peloton made the catch.

Godon carried the points classification jersey across the line for the win, but even with the time bonus and slight time gaps to the rest of the field it was not enough to overtake Leroux, who was five seconds down from a split in the field. In the GC, Decathlon finished with three riders in the top 10, Clément Berthet in fourth and Aurélien Paret-Peintre in seventh while Godon took a podium spot.

La Rochefoucauld-en-Angoumois launched proceedings of the 185.9km final stage with a pair of KOM opportunities across the opening 45km - Côte de la Mitonnie (300 metres at 7%) and Côte de Loubressac (400 metres at 4%), just 9km separating the two KOM points. From there, the route flattened out in the middle with sprint bonifications at Le Vigeant (Kilometre 76) and Fleuré (kilometre 109.5) before taking on three full finish circuits of 13.5km each in Poitiers.

The final intermediate sprint points offered came on the first pass of the finish line with 41km to go, marked by the steepest rise on the back half of the route, a 4.9% gradient across the final kilometre, with the steepest gradient at the end.

Light rain fell in the early kilometres as a quintet of riders moved away - Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis), Federico Biagini (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), Cameron Rogers (Lidl-Trek Future Racing), Mathis Avondts (Parkhotel), and Daniel Årnes (Van Rysel Roubaix). They gained 2:26 on the peloton with 125km to go, and continued to work together over the next 75km with the gap sustained at 1:30 for most of the middle section of the race.

Thomas led the group on the stiff uphill under the finish banner to begin the finish circuit, but still too far away to catch points classification leader Dorian Godon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).

Team TotalEnergies set the pace in the chase for race leader Samuel Leroux. The squad had 20 of their ENVE road machines stolen in the early-morning hours prior to the stage 3 individual time trial, but were all seen with ENVE bikes and wheels on Friday, as the French team's service course was located within 175km from the start.

On the second pass of the finish line, the gap dropped to one minute. TotalEnergies carried on without Alexys Brunel, as he abandoned, and other riders dropped off the increased pace.

It was not until the final circuit that the five leaders were in sight of the charging peloton, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale working with Total Energies to increase the pace, though Lidl-Trek, Arkéa-B&B Hotels and Unibet Tietema Rockets put riders near the front.

The entire complexion of the race changed with 2km to go as the breakaway was swept back into the fold, setting the stage for the uphill charge across the final 800 metres.

St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 moved two riders to the front at the one-kilometre-to-go flag, but it was all Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale at the top, with Godon earning his 14th career victory.

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