Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) scored his first win of the season in a messy sprint finish to round out stage 1 of the Tour de la Provence.
The Irishman hit the front in the dying metres of the 169km stage, coming through to beat Lukáš Kubiš (Unibet Tietema Rockets) and Alexis Renard (Cofidis) to the line as reigning champion Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) came home in fifth place.
The charge to the line in Saint-Victoret had been a disorganised one, with solo attacker Samuel Leroux (TotalEnergies) only caught with 18km to go after going on the attack 18km out.
The Irishman hit the front in the dying metres of the 169km stage, coming through to beat Lukáš Kubiš (Unibet Tietema Rockets) and A (Cofidis) to the line as reigning champion l-Trek were denied the win by the fast-finishing Bennett.
"We wanted to come here and get our first win of the season," Bennett said after the stage. "We knew it was going to be quite a hard beginning of the race, but we managed to get over the first climb with enough riders to bring me back into the first group. The guys did a fantastic job, and it was terribly difficult, but we managed to pull it off.
"It was quite windy but it actually helped me because a lot of the time it was actually a headwind over the climb, so it allowed me to get over in a better group. It was quite good, and I quite liked the wind.
"The team were fantastic, and I want to thank them for the amazing support. They didn't give up hope on me after Bessegès and we came here and I'm glad to repay them with a victory."
Bennett now holds the race lead heading into another hilly day on stage 2. He has four seconds on Kubiš and six on Renard. Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) lies in fourth place at seven seconds, while Pedersen is fifth overall, eight seconds down.
How it unfolded
The opening stage of the 2025 Tour de la Provence would take the peloton on a hilly 169.3km run from Marseille to Saint-Victoret. Three second-category climbs stood along the way while many more unclassified hills also dotted the route.
The attacks came from the very start as riders fought to make the break of the day before a group of just four broke clear in the opening kilometres.
Antoine Hue (CIC-U-Nantes), Baptiste Vadic (TotalEnergies), Maximilien Juillard (Van Rysel-Roubaix), and Victor Guernalec (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) were in the move as Lidl-Trek and EF Education-EasyPost) settled in to control the peloton behind.
The status quo didn't hold for long, however, as the peloton split up on the hills in the opening 50km, breaking apart with 125km left to run as the break was hauled in early. At 118km to go, things were back together at the front as the breakaway quartet was caught.
Lidl-Trek were the best-represented squad in the much-slimmed front group with reigning champion Mads Pedersen joined in the move by teammates including Toms Skujins, Alex Kirsch, and Bauke Mollema. Bahrain Victorious duo Matej Mohorič and Fred Wright were another key rider in the group, while EF could count on Darren Rafferty and Jefferson Cepeda.
Once again, it was Lidl-Trek and EF who led the way at the front, keen to keep the move of around 20 riders going. Further back, Unibet Tietema Rockets were among the teams working in the distanced chase group, along the way making a catch and swelling the lead group to around 60 men – including Bennett, who had missed the split earlier.
In the end, the stage would be contested among that still-reduced leading group, with Lidl-Trek assuming responsibility for the pacemaking heading towards the endgame, including the final classified hill of the day, the Col de Belcodène at 45km out.
Shortly afterwards, Matteo Vercher (TotalEnergies) would strike with a solo attack, 38km from the finish. He'd pull out 20 seconds on the group, though his move was eventually shut down with 30km to run.
A short-lived move from Pedersen, Mohorič, and Raúl García Pierna (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) would follow, but the trio wouldn't get any real traction before getting brought back.
Lidl-Trek continued to lead into the intermediate sprint 18km from the line, which saw Wright hit the front to take the win. Another solo move from TotalEnergies, this time from Samuel Leroux, followed.
Leroux's move was a strong one, with the Frenchman holding his gap and extending it on the uphill drag leading towards the final 10km. He'd hit that marker with a 40-second advantage, even as the combined might of Lidl-Trek and EF put in the work in the chase.
On the largely downhill run from there to the finish line, the chasers did manage to eat into the gap, cutting 15 seconds away by the 6km mark. Leroux was in sight just up the road as the race hit the final 3km, though the Frenchman would battle on into the final kilometre before he was finally caught.
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale and Cofidis had joined the chase by that point, contributing the final push to bringing Leroux back. He was reabsorbed around 500 metres out, leaving the main group to contest the sprint finish.
A messy run-in saw riders from Lidl-Trek, Decathlon AG2R, Cofidis, EF, and Groupama-FDJ all battle for the front, but it was Bennett who found the speed and the space to hit the front in time to claim a comfortable win at the line.
Results
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