Lidl-Trek suffer another Classics setback in Provence as early breakaway takes stage win

While conditions in Northern Europe are still relatively decent on Friday, Southern Europe has been hit hard. Spain and Portugal have been dealing with weeks of rain and snow, forcing organisers to shorten the opening stage of the Vuelta a Murcia — and riders in southern France were also faced with miserable weather.

So in Marseille, the peloton lined up in rain jackets for the first stage of this Tour de la Provence, a 163-kilometre rolling route to Saint-Victoret. The start list featured plenty of familiar names: Mathias Vacek, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek), Neilson Powless (EF Education–EasyPost), Carlos Rodríguez, Laurens De Plus (INEOS Grenadiers), and Dutchman Wout Poels (Unibet Rose Rockets).

French teams, as expected, also arrived with strong line-ups. Groupama–FDJ (with Guillaume Martin), Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale (Oliver Naesen and Matthew Riccitello), Cofidis (Emanuel Buchmann) and TotalEnergies (Anthony Turgis) all fielded quality riders — and that promised an interesting first day despite the weather.

From the gun, a five-man breakaway went clear: Arnaud Tendon (Van Rysel–Roubaix), Jonas Walton (CIC), Mattia Bais (Polti–VisitMalta), Bailey McDonald (Team Novo Nordisk) and David Zanutta (XDS-Astana).

INEOS Grenadiers and Lidl-Trek controlled matters behind, and in particular Kragh Andersen stood out on the wet descents. The Dane was even seen having to rein it in at one point in the rain (video here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUfRXK4lloy/). Not long after, however, news filtered through that he had abandoned the race after a fall.

It is another setback for Lidl-Trek’s Classics group, coming so soon after the crash that ruled Mads Pedersen out of action. Kragh Andersen reportedly suffered a muscle bruise to his upper leg (thigh contusion) in the incident and could not continue.

The rest of the peloton pushed on through torrential rain, while remnants of the breakaway — driven largely by Tendon, who had already shown strong form in Bessèges — somehow managed to hang on deep into the finale. Despite the chase efforts of multiple teams, the attackers still had a useful advantage heading into the final kilometres.

With one kilometre to go, the gap was still around ten seconds in the downpour, setting up a tense finish. The fast men closed to the breakaway’s wheel at the line, but it was not enough: Tendon held on to take a well-earned victory from the day’s early move.