{"id":734030,"date":"2026-06-13T10:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T10:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/734030\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T10:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T10:58:13","slug":"massive-breakaway-turns-tour-auvergne-rhone-alpes-on-its-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/734030\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive breakaway turns Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes on its head"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday\u2019s sixth stage of the old Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, France\u2019s Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes<\/a>, was taken at a torrid pace and dominated by an enormous breakaway that contained Hugo Houle. There had only been one race leader so far, but Alex Baudin was finally stripped of yellow by relative unknown Luke Tuckwell, a Red Bull Aussie who has a big lead. Tuckwell\u2019s teammate Maxim Van Gils earned the day\u2019s flowers.<\/p>\n

Preliminaries<\/p>\n

Overnight Alex Baudin still led the race after five stages. K\u00e9vin Vauquelin, Oscar Onley, Matteo Jorgenson, Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose were within 47 seconds of yellow. Paul Seixas and Isaac del Toro had a little more work to do.<\/p>\n

The Course<\/p>\n

After a pairing a Cat. 4 with a Cat. 2 in the middle of the 182.3 km from Saint-Vulbas-Crest-Voland, the day would end with another two-step ascent. First came Cat. 1 C\u00f4te d\u2019H\u00e9ry-sur-Ugin, longer than it was steep, before the Cat. 1 summit finish of C\u00f4te de Crest-Voland, 5.9 km of 7.5 percent. It was a hot day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Things would get tough in the \u201cAura Tour\u201d from now on. Image by La FlammeRouge<\/p>\n

The bad news before the start <\/a>was that Thursday\u2019s victor Wout van Aert had left the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes after concerns over an elbow injury that continued to trouble him ahead of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That elbow problem persists. Photo: Sirotti<\/p>\n

The peloton split early, and sixty chaps including Hugo Houle reached the first categorized climb, Cat. 4 C\u00f4te de Ch\u00e2telard, with a 2:00 lead on the yellow jersey group. The man in the polka-dot jersey, Cl\u00e9ment Braz Afonso, scored maximum KOM points on Ch\u00e2telard and Col du Granier before his gang tackled the long journey though the valley, where it pulled out more time.<\/p>\n

More teams started to contribute to the chase. The gap was 4:00 with 40 km remaining.<\/p>\n

Cat. 1 C\u00f4te d\u2019H\u00e9ry-sur-Ugin rose for 11.6 km at 4.9 percent. The breakaway\u2019s lead was tickling 5:00 by the time the road kicked up to the sky and the mob immediately thinned out, Houle heading backwards. Back in the yellow jersey peloton, Netcompany-Ineos towed the group. As 23 riders tipped over at the business end of the race, moves started in the yellow jersey group.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Braz Afonso bolstered his KOM lead on C\u00f4te d\u2019H\u00e9ry-sur-Ugin. Photo: Sirotti<\/p>\n

The 22 riders left hit the C\u00f4te de Crest-Voland. Van Gils, Pablo Torres and Tobias Halland Johannessen took off on their breakmates, eventually drawing Tuckwell. Behind, Seixas rode everyone off his wheel except del Toro and Jorgenson.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Seixas, del Toro and Jorgenson on the final climb.<\/p>\n

For the day\u2019s win, Torres was no longer in the picture. Two Red Bulls vs uno Uno-X. Halland Johannessen went early, but Van Gils came around him, infuriating the Norwegian. Tuckwell was third.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s summit finish is the almighty HC-rated Grand Colombier. Can Tuckwell hang on?<\/p>\n

2026 Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes Stage 6
1) Maxim van Gils (Belgium\/Red Bull) 4:06:34
2) Tobias Halland Johannessen (Norway\/Uno-X) s.t.
3) Luke Tuckwell (Australia\/Red Bull) +0:06<\/p>\n

2026 Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes GC
1) Luke Tuckwell (Australia\/Red Bull) 22:14:55
2) Bruno Armirail (France\/Visma-Lease a Bike) +1:12
3) Guillaume Martin (France\/Groupama-FDJ) +2:00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday\u2019s sixth stage of the old Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, France\u2019s Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes, was taken at a torrid pace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[261243,78767,49,48,635,75501,263987,155108,75504,82,11588],"class_list":["post-734030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2026-tour-auvergne-rhone-alpes","tag-2026-uci-worldtour","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-hugo-houle","tag-luke-tuckwell","tag-maxim-van-gils","tag-michael-leonard","tag-sports","tag-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734030","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=734030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}