Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost) won the opening stage of the Région Pays de la Loire Tour in Saint-Jean-de-Monts, besting Jon Aberasturi (Euskaltel-Euskadi) in a photo finish bunch sprint. David Dekker (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) was third.
A day's breakaway composed of Declan Irvine (Novo Nordisk), Louka Matthys (Bingoal WB) and Jean-Louis Le Ny (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) escaped early on the stage but the sprinters' teams kept their lead under control.
The trio managed a lead of five minutes but they were reeled in before another trio to escape: Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost), Kévin Ledanois (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and Rait Ärm (Van Rysel-Roubaix).
That move came back, too, before the final 10 kilometres. Despite a few riders trying to foil the sprinters, the race was all together for the bunch gallop. Van den Berg started the sprint but saw Aberasturi coming up fast from the middle of the peloton. After a frantic bike throw and a photo finish, the jury declared Van den Berg the winner and first leader of the race.
“I didn’t see who had won so I was waiting for the photo finish,” Van den Berg said. “We had to wait for the photo finish. I came a little bit early and I saw him coming and had not much left, so I just jumped. I saw that he dropped a little bit of speed, so threw my bike. I had trained on that quite a bit. I am super happy with this win.”
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