Paul Lapeira (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) launched out of the field mid-way up the punchy climb to the finish line to secure the stage 3 victory at the Tour du Limousin-Périgord-Nouvelle Aquitaine.
The peloton had caught the remnants of the day-long breakaway with one kilometre to go, just as the roads pitched upwards to the finish line in Masseret.
Lapeira attacked first and was strong enough to hold off runner-up and overall leader Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and third-placed Alexandre Delettre (Team TotalEnergies).
Costiou leads the overall classification into the final stage 4 on Friday.
The third stage of the Tour du Limousin-Périgord-Nouvelle Aquitaine was a 182.7km race from Saint-Jal to Masseret with four categorised climbs mid-race.
A breakaway of nine set off that included Victor Lafay (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Jonathan Lastra (Cofidis), Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ), César Pérez (Equipo Finisher-Kern Pharma), Thomas Gachignard (Team TotalEnergies), Quentin Bezza and Henri-François Renard-Haquin (both Wagner Bazin WB), and Kévin Avoine and mountains classification leader Kenny Molly (both Van Rysel Roubaix).
Although they pushed their lead out to more than three minutes, it was eventually reduced to 2:30 in the final 50km of the race with Arkéa-B&B Hotels leading the field to protect their overall leader, Costiou.
The breakaway split in the closing kilometres with LaFay, Bezza and Renard-Haquin pushing ahead just 30 seconds ahead of the field.
After doing much of the work in the breakaway for his teammates, Renard-Haquin was distanced with 5km to go, and LaFay and Bezza only held on for a few seconds before being swallowed up by the field in the last kilometre, just as the peloton hit the climb to the finish.
Results
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