Seasonal revelation Paul Lapeira also strikes in the rain stage of the Tour of the Basque Country

Paul Lapeira keeps winning in the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale kit. The 23-year-old French seasonal revelation already booked his first professional victories earlier this month and was successful today in the second stage of the Tour of the Basque Country. After a chaotic final, Lapeira turned out to be the fastest in the sprint.

In the Tour of the Basque Country you often have to look for the sprinters with a magnifying glass, but for the men with a strong finish today there might have been an opportunity to sprint for the win. The first ride-in-line took place entirely on French territory, in the French Basque Country. Over a distance of 160 kilometers, the riders had to overcome some 2,300 meters of altitude, from Irun to Kanbo. There was only one categorized climb on the menu, but it went up and down all day.

Jetse Bol chooses to attack
Five riders were in charge in the first hours of the race. With Jetse Bol there was a Dutchman in the early breakaway and the Burgos-BH rider was joined by Alexis Vuillermoz (TotalEnergies), Iván Cobo (Equipo Kern Pharma) and the brothers Enekoitz Azparren (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Xabier Mikel Azparren (Q36.5). The peloton quickly gave up and the lead of the five leaders increased to more than four minutes.

After more than twenty kilometers of racing, the riders were presented with the only categorized climb of the day. On the flanks of the Col de Saint-Ignace (2.7 km at 5.2%), the leading group fought for the mountain points. Bol reached the top first, ahead of Cobo and Vuillermoz, and thus came alongside Roglic in the mountains classification. And because the Slovenian also has the yellow leader’s jersey, the Burgos-BH driver can start in the mountain jersey on Wednesday.

Classic course of action
There wasn’t much to do in the following kilometers. The lead of the leaders continued to fluctuate around three minutes for a long time, but Bol and his companions never really had a prospect of a stage victory. With still about ninety kilometers to go, Cobo had to let his fellow escapees go. The Spaniard was clearly at his best and was quickly picked up again by the peloton, which was mainly led by BORA-hansgrohe.

With twenty kilometers to go, the four remaining escapees only had a half-minute lead, and just five kilometers later, Bol and co’s song was really over. It then went very quickly to the last kilometers. Due to the heavy rainfall, it was necessary to be careful of possible falls in the final. The riders had been warned, but the peloton was still shocked by several falls, with Tao Geoghegan Hart as the biggest victim. Fortunately, the Briton was able to continue on his way.

photo: Cor Vos

Paul Lapeira issues new business card
Due to the bad weather and the slippery roads, we had a chaotic run-up to the sprint. No team managed to set up a decent lead-out, but it didn’t seem to bother Paul Lapeira. The Frenchman from Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale managed to position himself excellently in all the hustle and bustle, started his sprint and managed to convincingly keep Samuele Battistella and Louis Vervaeke behind him.

It is his third victory of the season and his professional career for the third-year professional from Fougères. Earlier this month he had his breakthrough at the highest level with victories in the Classic Loire-Atlantique and Cholet Agglo Tour. There have been some changes in the general classification, but Primoz Roglic is still in the lead in the general classification after today.