Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) took a solo win on stage 2 of the Région Pays de la Loire Tour with an urgent attack across the final kilometre which could not be matched.
Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) led the large chase group of 34 riders for second place eight seconds back, while Emilien Jeannière (TotalEnergies) took third.
Bonus seconds at the line put Costiou in the race leader’s jersey, now seven seconds behind stage 1 winner Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost), who was in the main chase group and crossed the line in 27th. Kristian Sbaragli (Team Corratec-Vini Fantini) moved into third overall with bonus points from the breakaway, bumping Jon Aberasturi (Euskatel-Euskadi) down to fourth by one second.
The 190.9km stage between Ezpeleta and Altsasu saw three riders at the front of the race on the first half of the second day of racing - Sbaraglia, Matisse Julien (CIC U Nantes Atlantique) and Joes Oosterlinck (Bingoal WB Devo Team).
The trio scooped up the intermediate sprint and mountain classification points, but were not a threat to Van den Berg’s overall lead so had a long leash. Once across the third KOM of the day, Route du Chemin de l’étang de Cunault, with under 50km to race, the peloton began to pull back the long leash.
With 32km to go, the riders began the first of four finishing circuits in Saumur, and the leading trio’s gap faded to under one minute, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale doing the majority of work at the front of the chase.
Just before the final circuit, the breakaway was back in the peloton, and Benoît Cosnefroy (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) attacked, with eight other riders surging to his back wheel, including race leader Van den Berg.
After the bell rang with under 8km to go, Cosnefroy attacked a second time on the short climb of Haut rue Chèvre (average 12.2%). This time a smaller group formed with Van den Berg, Alexandre Delettre (St Michel-Mavic-Auber93) and Bryan Coquard (Cofidis). More riders joined the fray once over the final climb of Haut rue Chèvre, and it looked like a large bunch sprint would follow.
The 21-year-old Costiou launched his winning move just beyond the red kite for 1km to go and left no doubt for his first win of the season.
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