Thibaut Gruel (Groupama-FDJ United) sprinted to victory on the opening day of the Route d'Occitanie, staying cool on a baking hot day in the southern French sunshine.
The Frenchman beat Madis Mihkels (EF Education-EasyPost) to the line in Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux, while holding off a late-charging Axel Zingle (Visma-Lease a Bike), who clinched the final spot on the podium.
The three-stage race heads into the mountains on the final day, but it opens with two undulating stages, though this opener wasn't tough enough to split or reduce the peloton in any significant way.
A four-man breakaway – Jamie Meehan (Cofidis). Oliver Mattheis (Bike Aid), Théo Delacroix (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber 93), and Laurens Huys (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) – got up the road for most of the day, being brought back some 40km from home.
Jean-Lup Fayolle (CIC Pro Cycling Academy) and Mattia Bais (Polti-Visit Malta) launched a secondary break but were reeled in with 12km to go, before attacks on the final climb of the Côte de Flac, a 1.2km kicker with 10km to go, came to nothing..
Alexandre Balmer (Solution Tech Nippo Rali) threw the cat among the pigeons with a late flyer 3km from home but he ran out of legs on the false flat closing kilometre, with the Groupama-FDJ sprint train cruising past him in sight of the finish line.
Two riders peeled off in turn to make way for Gruel, who made no mistake, with Mihkels in the wheel but unable to come around. Zingle did finish with speed but came from too far back, underlining the importance of Gruel's textbook lead-out.
With bonus seconds for the top three, Gruel leads the general classification by four seconds over Mihkels and seconds over Zingle, with the main bunch of 70 riders 10 seconds down.
The race continues with another punchy stage on Friday before the decisive day in the mountains on Saturday.
Results
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