Cycling: Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) has won the first stage of the Tour de la Provence. The 25-year-old Frenchman was unbeatable in the bunch sprint in Istres. However, with no time credits at the Tour de la Provence, Alexandre Geniez (AG2R La Mondiale) remains in the lead in the overall standings.
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Laporte by far the fastest
Two mountain classifications of the fourth category were on today's program. La Côte des Termes was crossed 15 kilometers after the start. La Sommet des Antiques 34 kilometers from the finish. Both exams should have no impact on day-to-day events. After yesterday in the prologue Alexandre Geniez (AG2R La Mondiale) celebrated his second win of the season and did the same today Christophe Laporte (Cofidis). After the 165,9 kilometers from Aubagne to Istres, he was able to celebrate early today. He won several bike lengths ahead of the Belgian Edward Michael Grosu (Nippo-Vini Fantini-Europa Ovini) and the French Pierre Barbier (Roubaix Lille Metropole).
Christophe Laporte:
"The team did a great job for me. I felt really good and didn't turn around."
¡Victoria de Christophe Laporte! Gran inicio de año para el de @TeamCOFIDIS, must be superior to the rest in the sprint.#TDLP2018 pic.twitter.com/39scZiEfZP
— Alpe d'Huez B&T (@Alpe__dHuez) February 9, 2018
Team Lotto Kern-Haus is active
The German Continental Team Lotto Kern-Haus was very active on today's stage. With Joshua Huppertz and Robert Kessler two German professionals tried to escape. However, this did not result in the breakaway group of the day. This formed only later. Eight kilometers before the finish, this was then also provided. Velomotion Editor Florian Nowak (Lotto Kern-Haus) finished with the peloton and reports for us directly from the route about his experiences at the Tour de la Provence.
“After a whopping 11 neutral kilometers we finally got off to a sharp start. It looked very promising for us as we had two people in the group of the day in Robert Kessler and Joshua Huppertz. Unfortunately, the pace was so fast at the beginning on the slightly uphill stretch that the group couldn't really break away and our boys came back. When the group (without us) was standing, the race was first controlled by the big teams until about 40 km before the finish line, the last mountain classification of the day. That was the start of the final. We were able to find each other very well before the mountain and drove extremely compact as a team right up to the last few kilometers, which is pretty positive. As expected, the final was pretty fast, and even if the fine-tuning in the sprint wasn't right, we can be quite satisfied with 21st place for Robert Kessler.
Tomorrow it will be really tough because the mountain stage is on the agenda. The first difficulty will come right after the start with a 5 km climb. You have to go really deep first. In the final you will see what the legs can do. The 2x 10 km climb will definitely not be easy. You'll hear from me by tomorrow."
🇫🇷@LAPORTEChristop of 🇫🇷@TeamCOFIDIS wins stage 1 of 🇫🇷#TourLaProvence #TDLP2018 https://t.co/FXFSWnW9Qv pic.twitter.com/pqkGdeEqWN
— World Cycling Stats (@wcstats) February 9, 2018