While EF Education First-EasyPost’s Alex Baudin claimed the spoils on the opening stage of Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, a canny late move from the group of favourites featuring Netcompany-Ineos duo Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin set up an intriguing tactical game for the week ahead.
As Baudin powered to a career-best result, the peloton held a solid pace on the Côte de Rousset, allowing the Frenchman to build his lead to 1:20 as he crested the climb. The docile pace continued on the final section into Saint-Ismier as the GC teams appeared keen to absolve themselves of the responsibility to hold the leaders jersey heading into the next few stages.
Attacks flew from the chase group of around 30 began with 7km of the stage to go. It was veteran Frenchman Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ United) who launched the decisive move and was followed first by Vauquelin with Jayco-AlUla’s Luke Plapp in his wheel. Six more including Onley followed and caught UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Kevin Vermaerke, who had accelerated over the final climb.
The group of ten built a maximum lead of just over half a minute and looked set to steal a significant advantage in the overall over pre-race favourites Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM), Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek). However, Ayuso accelerated hard on a short rise in the final 3km to cut the gap drastically.
In the end Onley, Vauquelin and co took nine seconds over the favourites, setting up an interesting tactical game for the rest of the race in which the British team could look to use its numbers and aggression as an advantage over their GC rivals.
“We did manage to take a little bit of time on Seixas and Del Toro,” said Vauquelin after the stage.
“For us it was a tactical game with two riders up front. In the next stages we will see what happens.”
The Frenchman finished the stage in ninth place, one spot ahead of team-mate Onley.
“I was just behind and I was following along,” Vauquelin said how he infiltrated the move.
“We were in the end fighting for second. I didn’t do the sprint 100%. We wanted to get time and with no bonuses on the line it didn’t really matter.”
The likes of Ben Tulett (Visma-Lease a Bike), Luke Tuckwell (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Léo Bisiaux (Decathlon-CMA CGM) were also present in the move.
The Tour Auverge-Rhône-Alpes will continue from Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux on stage with several tough days to come.
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