Ethan Vernon (Israel Premier-Tech) powered to a win on stage 1 of the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var in a dash from Sean Flynn (Group dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Vincenzo Albanese (Arkea B&B Accommodations).
“We adopted after we wanted to with the GC guys to remain within the race for tomorrow after which within the final lap the legs had been good and I knew I may win,” Vernon mentioned after the end.
“The blokes had been actually robust, we lined it out within the final 6km and I nervous we’d gone too early however I used to be actually impressed with how robust the fellows had been.
“The primary two climbs had been actually robust, as soon as I survived that I knew I used to be OK,” he added.
The win marks the primary victory for Vernon in 2024, and got here within the wake of a heroic solo break from Andréa Mifsud (Good Métropole Côte d’Azur) who was caught just one.5km from the road.
Beginning at Levens, the 165.5km route featured 4 hilly laps by way of Valbonne earlier than descending to the end within the Riviera city of Antibes.
A two-man breakaway of Andréa Mifsud (Good Métropole Côte d’Azur) and Morné Van Niekerk (St. Michel–Mavic–Auber 93) shaped early within the race and the hole stretched out to round 2 minutes with 65km remaining
The 2 held a spot of 1:20 into the ultimate 40km, and managed to increase the margin as they took benefit of the technical roads and fast descents of the coastal circuit.
With 25km remaining it appeared that the peloton had misjudged the break because it lingered just below two minutes forward, leaving the dash groups with an extremely palpable process to tug them again.
Nevertheless, the peloton started to ramp up its pursuit dramatically as Romain Bardet (Group dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Romain Gregoire (Groupama–FDJ) broke away from the principle group, bringing the hole to the 2 leaders shortly down to 1 minute.
With Bardet and Gregoire in pursuit, Mifsud attacked Van Niekerk and rode clear because the three different escapes briefly joined collectively throughout the last 20km, earlier than Van Niekerk fell off the tempo.
The profile of the 2 Romains was too nice to permit them to experience free, and they also had been pulled in at 15km remaining, leaving Mifsud out solo and with slim however hopeful potential for the win.
Entertaining and heroic although his break was, it wasn’t sufficient to assert stage victory.
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