Tom Van Asbroeck (Israel-Premier Tech) closed out the Tour de la Provence with a sprint victory on the final stage in Arles as Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) secured overall victory with a fifth place.
The Dane had won the opening three days of the race and was the man to launch the long sprint for the line at the end of the 183.2km concluding stage. However, racing in the front group after the peloton had been shattered by crosswinds, he couldn't quite convert the move into total domination of the four-day race.
Instead, he was passed by Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), who was in turn passed by Van Asbroeck in the dying metres of the sprint. The Belgian jumped out the wheel late and came through to secure his first win since 2019, with Bennett taking second and Axel Zingle (Cofidis) third among the 11-rider front group.
The wind struck the race just before the 70km to go mark, with the peloton blowing apart and rapidly closing the gap to the five-man breakaway – Luca De Meester (Bingoal WB), Fabien Grellier (TotalEnergies), Kenny Molly, Kevin Avoine (Van Rysel-Roubaix), and Alexis Guerin (Philippe Wagner-Bazin).
The group's advantage fell from over six minutes to under two in short order, and as the lead group from the peloton flew along to push their advantage. Lidl-Trek, Decathlon-AG2R, and Cofidis were well represented in the move with five, four, and three men up front, while 10 others from teams including Israel-Premier Tech, Groupama-FDJ, and TotalEnergies were also in there.
At 45km to go, the lead part of the peloton caught the break for good, though the men lying in second, third and fourth in GC – Bruno Armirail (Decathlon-AG2R), Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), and Riley Sheehan (Israel-Premier Tech) weren't in the move.
Riders slipped off the back of the front group as the kilometres passed by, while the gap to Costiou's group increased over a minute at 40km to go. On the flat run to the finish, that gap would only increase to over three minutes as the size of the lead group slimmed down considerably, leaving a small group of contenders for the stage.
In the end, it looked as though Pedersen would complete the race with a fourth stage win in four days, but despite launching long he didn't quite have enough to hold on and secure the win, though he'll be more than happy to walk away with the overall, his sixth win of 2024 and second GC victory to boot.
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