The opening stage of the Tour de la Provence proved quite dynamic this Friday from Marseille to Saint-Victoret. The race opened up early on with the various climbs, and the peloton split into two parts. Together with Olivier Le Gac and Thibaud Gruel, Clément Russo managed to stay in the front and then got involved in the final sprint where he took fourth place, a few centimetres from the podium. Thibaud Gruel collected a bonus second earlier which allows him to sit in seventh place overall after this first stage.
Although the first stage of the Tour de la Provence did not include any major climbs, it was nevertheless quite a hard one on the table, up and down all day, with nearly 2,600 metres of elevation gain over just 169 kilometers. There was also a real doubt about a possible bunch sprint in Saint-Victoret since the two main climbs featured in the first part of the route. This doubt didn’t last long, because after having let a four-man breakaway establish itself, the peloton really accelerated, and exploded, in the Col de l’Espigoulier after just forty kilometers. “The start of the stage was actually quite hilly,” recalled Yvon Caër. “It went very fast and we lost Paul who didn’t have good legs. At 100%, he would certainly have come over that climb. There was a bit of panic. We still had Thibaud, Olivier and Clément in the main group, but we couldn’t let the twenty guys who had gone in front slip away. So we pulled in the first peloton, and also in the second one for Paul. On the other hand, we were never in a position to wait for Paul at 100%. We thought about it, but that would have been a mistake.” “This start to the race is not really what we had planned,” added Clément Russo. “The first goal was to come back to the front, then wait for Paul to come back in the hope that things would settle down a bit. Unfortunately, we quickly understood that it wasn’t going to happen.”
“I didn’t miss much to get a big result,” Clément Russo
A first peloton of around forty riders slowly increased the gap on the second one, and it became clear from mid-race that they wouldn’t come back. “So we adapted the strategy, and we switched to Thibaud for the GC and me for the sprint,” explained Clément. Yet, it was necessary to overcome another few climbs to reach Saint-Victoret. Lidl-Trek and EF Education-EasyPost tried to control the various attacks, and the peloton competed for the second intermediate sprint with nineteen kilometres to go. Thibaud Gruel took an interesting bonus second there, then the pack led the chase behind Samuel Leroux in the final. It all came back together at the last moment and a small bunch sprint took place. “Olivier put me back in position before on a technical descent, then Thibaud helped me as well as we approached the last kilometre,” said Clément. “I came in a good position, in the slipstream, with a lot of speed, and I didn’t miss much to get a big result.” Thanks to a nice comeback in the final straight, the Frenchman claimed fourth place. “It was a rather unusual sprint, and if the door had opened in front of him, he would have been close to victory,” said Yvon. “It’s nice that Clément, who always works for others, can show himself when he has his chance. It’s important mentally, and his great technical vision of the sprint might pay off one day”.
Thibaud Gruel also made it into the top 10 of the day, in eighth position, and sits in seventh place overall thanks to the bonus second collected along the way. “He’ll give his all tomorrow to make sure he’s up there at the top of the climb located thirty kilometres from the finish,” added Yvon. “The teams that don’t have a sprinter will make it hard, and it will be a tough one. Then, the slight uphill finish suits him well if Paul is not there.”
