Cycling: Rémy Di Grégorio (Delko Marseille Provence KTM) has won the French-dominated queen stage of the Tour de la Provence. Overall leader Alexandre Geniez (AG2R La Mondiale) finished seventh and was able to defend his leader's jersey. His teammate Mathias Frank from Switzerland finished ninth as the best non-Frenchman.
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Di Grégorio wins the "French Championships"
After the prologue and the sprint finish on the first stage, today's program featured the queen stage of the four-day tour through southern France. The 144-kilometer route led from La Ciotat to Gémenos. The final eleven kilometers included the Col de l'Espigoulier, a climb averaging 5,4 percent. As expected, it was a French affair. At the end of the day, no fewer than nine French professionals finished in the top ten. Rémy Di Grégorio proved to be the strongest, having not won a race in almost four years. Today, the 32-year-old left all his rivals behind. Lilian Calmejane (Direct Energie), who won the eighth stage of last year 's Tour de France, finished second. Tony Gallopin (AG2R La Mondiale), winner of the 2018 Étoile de Bességes, completed the podium. His teammate Alexandre Geniez remains in the overall lead.
🇫🇷Remy Di Gregorio of 🇫🇷 @Delko_MP_KTM wins stage 2 of 🇫🇷 #TourLaProvence (📹 @BrainOnWheels ) #TDLP2018 pic.twitter.com/FCNitBqvIL
— World Cycling Stats (@wcstats) February 10, 2018
Si Gregorio and the tournament. Les 2 belles surprises au milieu des cadors #TDLP2018 pic.twitter.com/9HPHqq8Gsg
— Sébastien Joignot (@SJoignot) February 10, 2018
Florian Nowak on the tough stage
Of course, the German Continental team Lotto Kern-Haus was also at the start today. They wanted to place a rider in the breakaway right from the beginning, but unfortunately, this wasn't possible due to the initial climb and the resulting high pace. In the end, almost the entire team finished in the gruppetto – including Velomotion editor Florian Nowak. After the race, he described his tough day to us.
“Today was pretty tough, as expected. The 6 km long ascent right at the beginning was quite challenging. And since, of course, some wanted to join the group with a view to today's finale, the pace was full throttle, so that a few riders have already dropped out. A part of our team, including me, was able to hold on well and even take part in the jumping for the group on the plateau after the climb. But the pace was still so fast that there was no escape. After about an hour everything calmed down a bit.
Somewhat surprisingly, the finale opened quite early. 20 km before the final ascent, which had to be mastered twice, it suddenly turned into a totally narrow path that was curvy and wavy. Since I wanted to eat again 20 km before the ascent and stopped briefly, I was far too far behind and could hardly make up any positions due to the high speed, which continued until the ascent. There I just had to drive at my own pace and couldn't close an initially small gap because I had already lost too many grains beforehand. With a small 4-man group we then waited on the flat section for a larger group behind us in order to master the last climb relatively relaxed. It was definitely tough today this early in the year, but I'm pretty happy with my form so far, considering I've only trained on cross-country skis so far.
Let's see how well we'll all recover until tomorrow, when we'll tackle the last stage with our full team strength. It will certainly not be easy on the undulating terrain.”
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