Jake Stewart sailed to an accomplished sprint victory in Mâcon after a hilly day out and a desperate chase by the peloton at the end of the 183km outing.
It was a first WorldTour victory for the British Israel-Premier Tech rider, who went for a long sprint from 300 metres with a view to outwitting favourite Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek).
It worked: he comfortably held off sprint rivals Axel Laurance (Ineos Grenadiers) and Søren Wærenskold (Uno-X Mobility) for second and third place, with Milan finishing fifth.
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Remco Evenepoel retained the yellow jersey, despite crashing on a tricky 180-degree roundabout turn in the final run-in, which became dubbed ‘the U-bend’. The Belgian rode into the finish with a scuffed jersey shoulder, apparently nursing a cut on his finger but otherwise apparently riding comfortably.
Beyond that there was little significant change in the higher GC placings, save for stage three winner Iván Romeo (Movistar) slipping from third to sixth after being caught on the wrong side of the 22-second gap to the front group of finishers. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) remain at 16sec and 38sec respectively.
This is turning out to be a rather successful season for Stewart – the first time he has scored two wins a season since starting his WorldTour career, with today representing his first win in a WorldTour race.
It came almost by chance, with Stewart taking over after his fast-finishing team-mate Pascal Ackermann crashed out. With the Coventry rider’s contract at Israel-Premier Tech expiring this season, he wasn’t slow to seize the opportunity.
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“This one feels good,” he said. “It’s such a shame with Ackermann, who crashed today… I’m gutted he didn’t get to contest the finish.
“It was handed over to me for the final bit. The boys backed me, the DSs backed me, the team backed me and did an awesome job, I’m just so happy I could finish it off for them.
He added: “I’ve just been getting better and better this season, I obviously took the win in [Four Days of] Dunkerque, and I was so close on the first stage, so to get redemption here, which was the last opportunity for us, is really good.”
Describing the rough and tumble of the final kilometre, he said: “It got a bit boxy, but I managed to find my way through on the U-bend and picked up [Mathieu] Van Der Poel‘s wheel. From there I just needed to kick before Milan, get a bit of a rush on him and yeah, I managed to kick at 300 and hold on till the line.”
More to follow…