{"id":472963,"date":"2026-02-13T19:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/472963\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T19:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:17:13","slug":"jonas-walton-shows-fine-form-in-early-break-at-tour-de-la-provence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/472963\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonas Walton shows fine form in early break at Tour de la Provence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Arnaud Tendon (Van Rysel Roubaix) captured the biggest dub of his career Friday, winning the opening stage of the Tour de la Provence from an impressive early breakaway that included Canada\u2019s Jonas Walton.<\/p>\n<p>The 163-km hilly route from Marseille to Saint-Victoret featured the Col de Mazauges (5.3 km at 5.3 per cent) and the Pas de la Couelle (5.1 km at five per cent) before flattening out over the final 60 km, setting up a tense chase.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">HE DID IT THIS TIME! \ud83d\ude0dArnaud Tendon (Van Rysel Roubaix) WINS the first stage of Tour de la Provence in Saint-Victoret from the breakaway, one week after being caught in last 50 meters in Besseges! \ud83d\udc4f\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udded Respect also to Mattia Bais, they worked until the end.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TourdelaProvence?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#TourdelaProvence<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KXuFf2Cbj4\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/KXuFf2Cbj4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/faustocoppi60\/status\/2022326213423812776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 13, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Break worked well together<\/p>\n<p>Mattia Bais, Bailey McDonald, David Zanutta, Jonas Walton and Tendon formed the day\u2019s escape, building a lead of nearly two minutes. Zanutta and McDonald were dropped with 58 km remaining, and Walton was distanced in the closing kilometres as the pace intensified. Still, it was a good ride by the CIC Pro Cycling Academy rider.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"fr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TDLP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#TDLP<\/a> \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 \/ Cinq coureurs \u00e0 l\u2019avant sur cette premi\u00e8re \u00e9tape :<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 BAIS Mattia (PKT)<br \/>\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\uddfa McDONALD Bailey (TNN)<br \/>\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udded TENDON Arnaud (VRR)<br \/>\ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udde6 WALTON Jonas (CIC)<br \/>\ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 ZANUTTA David (XAT)<\/p>\n<p>Le peloton contr\u00f4le. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iMT0kJFdyK\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/iMT0kJFdyK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Renaud Breban (@RenaudB31) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RenaudB31\/status\/2022289467009106361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 13, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In wet conditions, Tendon and Bais clung to a slim 25-second advantage and held off the peloton. Tendon proved strongest in the two-up sprint.<\/p>\n<p>For 2026 Walton is riding for the French team after stints with Project Echelon Racing and Team Ecoflo Chronos. The French team he\u2019s on now has a long history, dating back to 2008.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/a-barry-a-walton-and-a-hincapie-all-podiumed-this-weekend\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A Barry, a Walton and a Hincapie all podiumed this weekend<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>As a dual citizen, he took out a Canadian licence in 2023. His parents are Olympic silver medallist Brian Walton, and world masters champ Dana Walton. As a junior racing with USA Cycling, he smashed the world hour record, coming in at 50.792 km.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, he had a superb ride at the <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/canadian-takes-sixth-at-the-road-world-championships-under-23-time-trial\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">road worlds in Kigali, Rwanda<\/a>. The TT specialist came 6th\u2013after briefly holding the hot seat. Stateside, he also won the 2025 Tour of North Georgia and took the white jersey for best young rider at the Tour of the Gila.<\/p>\n<p>Oakville Ont.\u2019s Michael Leonard (EF Education First) was 38th, with Walton coming in at 78th.<\/p>\n<p>Stage 2 goes from Forcalquier to Montagne de Lure for a total of 174.9km.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arnaud Tendon (Van Rysel Roubaix) captured the biggest dub of his career Friday, winning the opening stage of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[192277,49,48,635,192278,82,191895],"class_list":["post-472963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-brian-walton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-jonas-walton","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-la-provence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}