Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) snatched the overall title at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, producing a commanding display to win his second successive stage and wrestle the yellow jersey from the shoulders of Luke Tuckwell (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) on the final day.
Del Toro started the final day in third place, 49 seconds behind Tuckwell, and he wiped out almost all of that deficit within one kilometre of a devastating attack issued 9km from the summit of the hors-catégorie Plateau de Solaison.
The Mexican breezed up the rest of the 10% climb with apparent ease and crossed the line alone more than a minute clear.
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Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) came home in second place, having attacked from the select chase group 5.5km from the top, with Tobias Halland Johanessen (Uno-X) mobility taking third place just behind after a stirring later counter-attack of his own.
Tuckwell, the unlikely leader, lost the yellow jersey but went down swinging.
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The 21-year-old Australian looked like he might plummet down the standings when he was dropped even before Del Toro had launched his attack early on the Solaison climb. But, aided by a stirring domestique display from Maxim Van Gils, he produced a remarkable comeback to work his way back up towards the chasing riders on the second half of the climb.
Tuckwell even caught – and passed – the rider who’d started the day closest to him, with Matteo Jorgenson suddenly coming undone on the upper reaches of the climb and ending up in 10th place.
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There was no Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) on the results sheet as the Frenchman was dropped on the opening climb of the day and climbed off after the descent, the previous day’s crash and chase finally taking its toll.
As the dust settled on a wildly eventful race in its first edition since the change of name from the Critérium du Dauphiné, Del Toro stood atop the podium to celebrate the third WorldTour stage race success of his season, following the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico.
Tuckwell held on for a highly-creditable and breakthrough second place overall, 54 seconds back, while Ayuso completed the final podium at 1:17.
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“It’s super nice, I’m super happy about today. It’s super cool to have the victory with the team. We fought for it, and it’s crazy nice. I cannot believe it,” said Del Toro.
“We planned to have it all in order – I knew after yesterday, everyone would start to look at me. My teammates did an incredible job today. Pablo [Torres] launched me insane, and I kept going until the end. If I knew was it was 9km I probably don’t go but I went with the flow and I’m super happy to manage it.”
At the start of the stage, all eyes were on Paul Seixas, who was spotted in his team kit walking from his hotel to his team bus, and then duly reported for duty and vowed to “fight until the end”. There were several more non-starters in this attritional Dauphiné, including Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) due to fever.
There was no easing into this finale, which climbed the first-category Col du Pré almost from the gun, followed by the hors-catégorie Montée de Bisanne, the cat-1 Col des Aravis (7km at 6.8%), and finally the hors-catégorie Plateau de Solaison (11.4km at 9.1%) – all in the space of just 120km
It was an explosive start, but a breakaway did soon form on the Col du Pré (6.9km at 10.1%), containing the Netcompany-Ineos duo of Laurens De Plus and Carlos Rodriguez, Seixas’ teammate Léo Bisiaux (Decathlon CMA CGM), the mountains classification leader Clément Braz Afonso (Groupama-FDJ United), along with Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step), and Harold Tejada (XDS Astana).
It wasn’t quite done, as Geoffrey Bouchard (TotalEnergies) launched a counter-attack and Kévin Vauquelin looked to try and make it three Ineos riders in the break. They’d both make contact on the descent down the other side of the mountain.
The breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)
The original seven reached the top of the Col du Pré after 10.5km with a lead of 1:30 over the peloton, from which Seixas had already been dropped. The Frenchman hauled himself over the top of the climb and started the descent, but he was well down, clearly hurting, and soon the call was made to throw in the towel.
Onto the Montée de Bisanne (11.4km at 7.7%) and Bouchard and Vauquelin, so soon after joining, were dropped near the top, along with Bisiaux. Braz Afonso made no mistake again at the summit, with the peloton – led by UAE and Lidl-Trek – 2:30 in arrears.
With numbers up front, Ineos were pushing the break on through the intermediate sprint in Les Glières with 54km to go, and then onto the Col des Aravis (7km at 6.8%). With the KOM jersey now sewn up, Braz Afonso allowed Ineos to stay on the front over the top of the Aravis, but things weren’t looking good for the break with the gap reduced to just 40 seconds.
That gap remained stable for the long and relatively gentle run-down into the valley, and by the time they hit the foot of the final climb towards the Plateau de Solaison (11.3 km à 9.1%), they had even found a few more seconds, starting it 50 seconds ahead.
However, that came tumbling down when UAE took over from Lidl-Trek on the lower slopes, setting a fearsome tempo that would soon set up Del Toro’s attack. Pavel Sivakov shredded the already-reduced peloton, and his turn saw the first signs of success as Tuckwell lost contact.
After a briefer turn from Pablo Torres, Del Toro took flight 9km from the summit. He breezed across the gap to the final two remaining breakaway riders – Rodríguez and Paret-Peintre – before skipping away from them. It soon became clear this was a devastating attack; within a kilometre, Tuckwell was 40 seconds down and on the brink of being virtually divested of yellow. In between, Jorgenson and Ayuso led the chase via their teammates Ben Tulett and Mattias Skjelmose, respectively, but likewise the deficit of that small chase group – which also contained Johanessen (Uno-X), Cristian Rodríguez (XDS Astana) and an impressive Carlos Rodríguez from the break – only continued to grow over the next few kilometres.
Isaac del Toro surges on the final climb (Image credit: Getty Images)
The gap had reached 40 seconds when Ayuso took it on himself to attack with 5.5km to go, launching a solo chase to try and flip the script from the previous afternoon. He looked to be making inroads as he saved a few seconds off the gap, but he soon slipped back out towards the minute-mark with 2.5km to go. At that point, Johanessen attacked from the chase, and Jorgenson surprisingly dropped from it.
Tuckwell, meanwhile, had rediscovered his legs half-way up the climb for a second summit finish in a row. He had stemmed the tide – not to Del Toro but to the rest – and he started to inch back closer to them, even catching the ailing Jorgenson.
Del Toro finished the job with a smile on his face in the final few hundred metres, while a storming Johanessen almost caught Ayuso on the line. Skjelmose and Cristian Rodríguez were next, soon followed by Carlos Rodríguez, before Van Gils led Tuckwell home for a ride that didn’t save the yellow jersey but did save the podium and nevertheless represented a huge success for the Australian.
Isaac del Toro wins Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes (Image credit: Getty Images)
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