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Cycling Weekly

Sport

Emma Magnus

Isaac del Toro wins eventful stage seven of Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, as Luke Tuckwell keeps yellow

Del Toro Luke Tuckwell Isaac Del Toro Paul Seixas Juan Ayuso MEX SPA Cian Uijtdebroeks Tobias Johannessen Caja RuralSeguros RGA

Isaac del Toro wins on the Grand Colombier (Dario Belingheri/Getty Images).

Isaac del Toro (UAE Emirates-XRG) has won an action-packed stage seven of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, as Luke Tuckwell (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) holds onto yellow.

Approaching the finish line on the top of the Grand Colombier, del Toro put his sunglasses back on, glanced backwards and, satisfied, took a bow.

“I’m getting better and better after every race,” he said in an interview with TNT Sports after the stage. “I’m not full of confidence, but I really wanted to try to take the win today.”

This was the 19-year-old’s first professional victory on French soil, but del Toro still has his sights set on bigger things. “I’m still hungry, so it’s something that will keep me alive for the next races,” he said. “[Winning the GC] was always the goal.”

“It’s crazy to be in this position sometimes, and when [the team] starts to help me, it feels super special,” he added. “You don’t know how special it is to see Mexican fans on the side of the road and have all their support…It’s simply incredible.”

Today’s 133.6-kilometre mountain stage featured six classified climbs and 3,728 metres of elevation gain, culminating on the famous Grand Colombier. Approached from its shorter, steeper and lesser-visited side, this 8.4-kilometre climb has an average gradient of 10.2%, with slopes of over 20%.

The stage had proven eventful from the outset, with more than 10 riders abandoning before the start, including Oscar Onley (Netcompany Ineos), who had crashed the day before, João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Per Strand Hagenes (Visma-Lease a Bike), Jorgen Nordhagen (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost).

A crash involving Dani Martinez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Alex Diaz (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Gal Glivar (Alpecin-Premier Tech) delayed the start of the race, which was then neutralised for a gravel descent and restarted at kilometre 30.

But the big news, however, was a crash for GC favourite and 19-year-old French superstar Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM), whose knees and elbows were cut, and whose white young rider’s jersey was stained with blood. Although Seixas promptly returned to his bike, he initially found himself almost four minutes down on the peloton.

A full team effort from Decathlon CMA CGM saw the gap slowly whittle down, with Seixas eventually rejoining the group with around 35 kilometres remaining, pointing his finger forwards as he made contact.

By the foot of the Grand Colombier, a hard-fought five-man breakaway had been caught, with the peloton back together.

Seixas’ efforts, however, had taken their toll. The French rider, along with Tuckwell, was distanced just over two kilometres into the climb.

Capitalising on the gap, Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), attacked with 6.7 kilometres remaining, soon going solo. He held around 20 seconds over a select group behind him, including del Toro, Johannessen, Cian Uijtdebroeks (Movistar) and Matteo Jorgensen (Visma-Lease a Bike), who took the helm.

Del Toro, however, was biding his time. At just over four kilometres from the summit, he jumped out from Jorgensen’s wheels, caught —and immediately passed— the lone Ayuso.

Del Toro finished with a lead of 24 seconds, moving up to third place on the general classification. Ayuso claimed second place, with Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) completing the podium.

Seixas, cut and bruised, lost 1 minute and 21 seconds, but finished the stage in seventh place, to the cheers of an adoring French crowd.

Tuckwell, meanwhile, retained the yellow leader’s jersey that he had won the day before, finishing 2 minutes and 33 seconds behind del Toro. He now holds a lead of 42 seconds in the general classification before tomorrow’s mountain stage.

“The goal was to try and do everything that I could —and use my decent advantage this morning— to try and keep the jersey,” said Tuckwell in a post-stage interview. “It was my first time on this climb, so it was quite unknown to me. I had such a nice advantage that I could just pace myself the whole way, and I didn’t have to react.

“I was really struggling in the middle. I was thinking that this was going to be quite touch and go, and then I got to about a kilometre-and-a-half to go and someone on the side of the road said: ‘Only one minute to the group.’ That was the motivation I needed, because I’d pulled my radio piece out. I basically went full to the line, and saw the time as I crossed. I had enough.”

“Tomorrow is another crazy, crazy day,” he added. “I’ll recover as well as I can and fight for it.”