Snow-walled climbing battle in Provence ends with a slippery sprint finish

It was a strange day of racing. While events in Spain and Portugal were being shortened because of stormy weather, France was also dealing with harsh conditions. Not wind this time, but the final climb of the queen stage — Montagne de Lure — looked more like a bobsleigh run in the morning than a road fit for a bike race. Still, the riders rolled out for the mountain stage.

Six riders decided to warm themselves up by going up the road early. Three Frenchmen, a Spaniard, an Australian and a Dane quickly built a lead of around three minutes over the peloton. In the rolling terrain on the way to the foot of the final climb, the break lost one rider — and time. The bunch drew closer, and the climbers prepared for a very cold showdown.

Decathlon CMA CGM Team worked hard for their leader Matthew Riccitello. The American has joined from Israel-Premier Tech (now NSN Cycling) and, on paper, started as one of the top favourites in his first race for the French squad. At the foot of the final ascent, they opened the taps fully, closing down the leaders at speed.

Mathis Le Berre (TotalEnergies) was the last rider left out front, but he was caught with 12 kilometres to go. INEOS Grenadiers then put the team on the front — Team Sky-style — and drove a fierce tempo for their leader Carlos Rodríguez. With 6.5 kilometres to the summit, the snow banks on the roadside grew higher and higher, although the racing line itself had been cleared well.

After Axel Laurance finished his turn and the INEOS “train”, led by AJ August, raised the pace again, Wout Poels (Unibet Rose Rockets) and Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek) had to let go with six kilometres remaining. Strong climbers such as Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ United) were also dropped, leaving only eleven riders at the front.

With 4.5 kilometres to the top, it was up to Rodríguez’s final helper Brandon Rivera to put the group back on the rack — and the Colombian time trial champion did the job. With only four riders still on his wheel, the signal came for Rodríguez to go. The Spaniard shed everybody, with only Riccitello clinging on briefly “on the elastic”

The Decathlon rider looked to be cracking, but managed to close the gap — and so we got nearly three kilometres of head-to-head racing. Riccitello sat on Rodríguez’s wheel, while the Spaniard could not afford to hesitate, with Aurélien Paret-Peintre hanging at around 20 seconds for Decathlon.

When Rivera came back to Paret-Peintre in the chase, both INEOS and Decathlon suddenly had two riders in play. Rodríguez was willing to let them return, partly because there was a hard, cold headwind for much of the climb. But with Paret-Peintre refusing to help close the gap while Rivera sat on his wheel, it still came down to Rodríguez and Riccitello sprinting it out.

In a twisting final kilometre, Riccitello launched first — and on a finish that was more sliding than sprinting, that proved the winning move, as he edged it by the finest of margins.