Dylan Groenewegen (BikeExchange) hoped he wouldn’t capsize this time, but the fastest sprinter in this field came in pretty quickly for the effort on the toughest climb of the day.
In the hunt for 6 leaders, Ineos Grenadiers and EF-EasyPost tightened up their efforts and Laurens De Plus in particular crippled Groenewegen’s and the leading group’s chances.
Or so it seemed, but the second part of that classic scenario faltered somewhere.
The remaining five – without the released Xandres Vervloesem (Lotto-Soudal) – sold their skin very dearly and too few teams in the peloton wanted to share the bill.
In the final phase, Jumbo-Visma was alone at the moment of truth, so that the jackpot was reserved for Alexis Vuillermoz (TotalEnergies), Olivier Le Gac (Groupama-FDJ), Anders Skaarseth (Uno-X), Kevin Vermaerke (DSM ) or Anthony Delaplace (Arkea-Samsic).
Le Gac surprised the rest with a powerful and old-fashioned early start, but Vuillermoz remounted his compatriot after a long sprint.
Wout van Aert finished 6th and gives his leader’s jersey to the French winner of the day.
“I thought: ‘Why don’t I do the same as that Intermarché rider yesterday?'”
Alexis Vuillermoz (34) won in 2015 at the Mûr-de-Bretagne in the Tour de France, but his career went into a slump after that. He is now finding his second breath at TotalEnergies.
“I have had difficult years, but this season it is going well,” said the number 10 of the Walloon Arrow.
“A victory was still missing and tomorrow’s stage was actually better for me. I didn’t want to attack, but I went along anyway.”
“I really thought we would still be caught and when Olivier Le Gac started in the sprint, I thought it was lost.”
“But at the same time I thought about the rider of Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert (Taco van der Hoorn) in that race (Brussels Cycling Classic) yesterday. He didn’t give up either. Why shouldn’t I do the same? With success”, the Frenchman laughed. .
