'It is one of the most beautiful days of my career' – Maxim Van Gils sprints to victory on ‘crazy’ stage six of Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Fantastic day for Red Bull as Van Gils wins the stage and Luke Tuckwell pulls on the yellow jersey
Maxim Van Gils outsprinted Tobias Johannessen to take victory on a “crazy day” in the Alps during stage six of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
After a big breakaway led the peloton by over four minutes for much of the day, the general classification was decimated and Van Gils’ Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate, Luke Tuckwell, finished third in the stage, to move into first place in the GC. The 21-year-old Australian also leads the young riders' classification.
Although he wasn't part of the breakaway, with just over 3km to go, 19-year-old Paul Seixas (Decathlon) pulled away from the front of the peloton in a show of strength, as fellow young gun Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) desperately held onto his wheel.
In other big news, after winning stage five yesterday, against his run of form this week, Wout van Aert did not start stage six of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, with Visma-Lease a Bike citing ongoing discomfort from a pre-race training crash.
Van Gils with EF Education - EasyPost riders earlier in the stage
Van Gils' stage win comes jut four months after he suffered a fractured pelvis in a finish-line crash at the Clásica Jaén, and the 26-year-old Belgian was beaming during the finish-line interview.
"I always stayed positive," he told reporters. "To win here in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, in the region of Dauphiné… it's a region I really love, my girlfriend is from here. I'm really, really happy about it.
"It was a really crazy day… My Scottish teammate Callum [Thornley], all the week I was telling him 'Friday we go', and we make it the day. But then we had four guys in the breakaway.
"To achieve this with the team is really great, we are here without a big leader. This morning I was asked some questions in interviews about why we didn't bring a big star, but to win a stage and take yellow is, I think, really really big."
Luke Tuckwell celebrates taking the yellow jersey
In hot and sunny conditions, riders raced around the 182.3km stage between Saint-Vulbas and Crest-Voland with an average speed on day 47.5km/ph.
But, despite riding near-enough through his home town, it was not a good Friday for Alex Beaudin. After spending five days leading the general classification at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the longest period any Frenchman has spent in the yellow jersey at this race since 1964, the EF Education-EasyPost rider tumbled down the table during a mad day in the mountains.
For a long period of the day, a breakaway group of up to 60 riders were leading the peloton by well over four minutes. The lead group had diminished to around 30 by the top of the penultimate climb, Côte d'Héry-sur-Ugine, but Beaudin had lost contact by the time the peloton reached the bottom of the final ascent, Côte de Crest-Voland.
The situation played perfectly into Luke Tuckwell’s hands, delivering the yellow jersey to the young Aussie and and taking a sledgehammer to the general classification, with just two stages of the race remaining.
