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Volta Comunitat Valenciana & Etoile de Bessèges 2026 (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by EvilCartyen@lemmy.world to c/procycling@lemmy.world

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Two lovely races this week:

This week we see the first races of some of the major players in the spring campaigns and the season overall.

Mads Pedersen, Joao Almeida, Biniam Girmay, and Giulio Pellizari will ride their first race against Evenepoel and the cat-killer Tiberi in and around Valencia.

And in the Bességes we will see French star Paul Lapeira battle it out with an assortment of other strong-but-not-quite-star rider such as Kubiš, Delettre, Costiou, Teuns and an apparently reanimated Groenewegen.

Enjoy!

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[–] Deschanel2017@lemmings.world 1 points 1 month ago

Bessèges, stage 3

The second half of the stage was a circuit including 2 climbs the following way: a bigger hill, a descent, and right away a second smaller hill.

When I started watching, there was a breakaway of 10 riders, each of them from a different team, with a 1 minute gap.

My report

There was an attack from the peloton (one Q36.5) that reduced the gap but the breakaway reacted and among it the 2 weakest riders dropped (one FDJ and perhaps a Lotto). Then the peloton regrouped.

There was in the following climbs a succession of attacks/accelerations and resting moments. One Decathlon and one Total joined the breakaway, then this Decathlon left with Unibet's Kopecky. Then there was a global regroup. Kopecky managed again to follow other attacks.

In the end a large bunch of almost 50 riders arrived for a sprint.

Decathlon and FDJ behaved a bit strangely today, once more. Typically, they would attack but then wouldn't quite relay, even when they outnumbered others teams. The result is that after 3 stages, not a single rider from those 2 French🇫🇷 WTs has scored a time bonus. Their 2 leaders are so-so, they sometimes attack, but they can't make a big or durable difference, if any.

Each of the 3 Belgian🇧🇪 teams engaged has won a stage: Flanders, then Lotto, and now Alpecin.

Kubish (🇸🇰 Unibet) having finished 2^nd^ twice, becomes the leader of the race. Crabbe (🇧🇪 Flanders) started being in trouble as soon as climbs started, and the peloton pushed a little bit.

Louis Hardouin (🇫🇷 Roubaix) did well again, he finished the stage in 3^rd^ position; and so is his ranking in GC.

Victor Papon (🇫🇷 Nice) scored Mountain points today in the breakaway. He's 16 points ahead of 5 followers; there are a maximum of 6 points tomorrow, and 10 on the last day's Time Trial. I haven't got the rules, so perhaps he is already sure to bring the jersey home, or perhaps he will have to score 1 point in the early little bump tomorrow to be safe for the rest of the race.