Paul Lapeira chases down attackers in final kilometer to win Tour des Alpes-Maritimes

The Tour des Alpes-Maritimes was won by Paul Lapeira.

What did the course look like?
Challenging. The riders didn’t reach very high altitudes, but over the 155-kilometer one-day race, they faced several significant climbs. The action started right from the gun, with the famous Col d'Èze (7.4 km at 4.8%). In the first eighty kilometers, they also tackled the Col de Châteauneuf (6.8 km at 6.4%) and the Col de Carros (5.6 km at 5.1%). The summit of the final long climb, the Côte de Gourdon (11.8 km at 4.6%), came 35 kilometers from the finish, but the finale remained quite hilly as well.

What happened during the early stages of the race?
A lot. We saw numerous different breakaways, all of which were eventually reeled back in. Hartthijs de Vries (Unibet Rose Rockets) and Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ United) were particularly active. However, they were not part of a quartet that eventually managed to gain a gap.

This group of four consisted of Cedrik Bakke Christophersen (Unibet Rose Rockets), Oscar Chamberlain (Decathlon-CMA CGM), and two Belgians: Vlad Van Mechelen (Bahrain Victorious) and Niels Driesen (Lotto-Intermarché). They held out until 45 kilometers from the finish. Led by XDS Astana, the peloton caught them, and the finale truly got underway.

How did the finale unfold?
The XDS Astana riders had closed the gap but missed their chance on the Côte de Gourdon. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), Marco Brenner (Tudor), Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon-CMA CGM), and Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ United) broke away. Martinez and Brenner eventually reached the top together.

Behind them, a group of thirteen formed, including several riders from XDS Astana and Decathlon-CMA CGM, as well as Frank van den Broek. They tried to catch Martinez and Brenner and got very close in the final kilometers. In fact, in the tough last kilometer, Paul Lapeira (Decathlon CMA CGM) surged past the two leaders. He then held off Christian Scaroni to claim the victory.