Ethan Vernon (Israel Premier-Tech) powered to a win on stage 1 of the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var in a sprint from Sean Flynn (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Vincenzo Albanese (Arkea B&B Hotels).
"We followed when we needed to with the GC guys to stay in the race for tomorrow and then in the last lap the legs were good and I knew I could win,” Vernon said after the finish.
"The guys were really strong, we lined it out in the last 6km and I worried we’d gone too early but I was really impressed with how strong the guys were.
"The first two climbs were really tough, once I survived that I knew I was OK," he added.
The win marks the first victory for Vernon in 2024, and came in the wake of a heroic solo break from Andréa Mifsud (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) who was caught only 1.5km from the line.
Starting at Levens, the 165.5km route featured four hilly laps through Valbonne before descending to the finish in the Riviera town of Antibes.
A two-man breakaway of Andréa Mifsud (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) and Morné Van Niekerk (St. Michel–Mavic–Auber 93) formed early in the race and the gap stretched out to around 2 minutes with 65km remaining
The two held a gap of 1:20 into the final 40km, and managed to extend the margin as they took advantage of the technical roads and quick descents of the coastal circuit.
With 25km remaining it seemed that the peloton had misjudged the break as it lingered just under two minutes ahead, leaving the sprint teams with an incredibly palpable task to pull them back.
However, the peloton began to ramp up its pursuit dramatically as Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Romain Gregoire (Groupama–FDJ) broke away from the main group, bringing the gap to the two leaders quickly down to one minute.
With Bardet and Gregoire in pursuit, Mifsud attacked Van Niekerk and rode clear as the three other escapes briefly joined together within the final 20km, before Van Niekerk fell off the pace.
The profile of the two Romains was too great to allow them to ride free, and so they were pulled in at 15km remaining, leaving Mifsud out solo and with slim but hopeful potential for the win.
Entertaining and heroic though his break was, it wasn’t enough to claim stage victory.
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