this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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Race thread: 🇫🇷 Tour de la Provence 2026, Feb 13–15 (www.tourdelaprovence.fr)
submitted 4 days ago by Deschanel2017@lemmings.world to c/procycling@lemmy.world
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link to the PCS page

After the Marseillaise and the Star of Bessèges, we stay on the French Mediterranean border with the Tour of (the) Provence (the 'the' is there because 'the Provence' is the name of the newspaper which sponsors the race). It is again a class 1 race, but the startlist gets a bit better, and the 3 foreign WT Ineos, EF and Lidl-Trek will be there. Does it mean that the party is over for Pro Teams and Contis?

This year the format is still reduced to 3 stages but mountain comes back, with the final climb of the Mountain of Lure on stage 2 (on Saturday). It is not a very steep climb but it is long.

General Map

Stages

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[–] Deschanel2017@lemmings.world 1 points 11 hours ago

Weather forecast for stage 3 (last one):

Light wind from North-North-West, no rain, around 10°C

I suppose that Ineos will try to create echelons in the last 50 km to bring Rodriguez🇪🇸 and/or Rivera🇨🇴 to GC victory by dropping Ricitello🇺🇸.

They lead the peloton on the first day; today of course they were the strongest in the climb; I imagine they have the manpower to do it; they usually have the know-how (although I am not sure the riders present here have it). But the forecasted wind seems weak after 14:00, 10 to 20km/h – which is unusual for the area; also it looks too much in the axis of the route: it presents either as a front wind or as a tail wind, with little angle.

Anyway, I suppose that Décathlon will be nervous about protecting Ricitello🇺🇸 in the whole last 50 km.

[–] Deschanel2017@lemmings.world 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Stage 2

The weather was (mostly?) dry today. Yet it must have been cold because everyone kept long clothes all day. The stage was not shortened; the race rules had plans for an alternate finish line half-way into the final climb in case of bad weather but it wasn't needed.

Scenario: as always, a breakaway of 6 (?) turned into 5 when I started watching. The base work in the peloton was shared between Ineos, Decathlon, Roubaix and St-Michel.

In several occasions, splits were created, mainly caused by accelerations by Decathlon; Roubaix was seen in numbers in the front groups too. But they all failed sooner or later.

The breakaway was caught when the final climb started.

As the climb was starting, we could get re-acquainted with the good old Ineos mountain train (Decathlon teammates had apparently been worn out by the accelerations they made before that). Miles after miles, it was a succession of drops from the back of the peloton.

Then as the group was down to, what?, 6 riders?, less?, Rodriguez (🇪🇸 Ineos) attacked. Only Ricitello (🇺🇸 Décathlon) could follow, not without difficulties. Behind was A. Paret-Peintre (🇫🇷 Décathlon).

The Ineos teammates who had lead the peloton before stepping aside recovered after a couple of minutes, and they started taking over the other competitors who had clung to the leaders longer. Thereby, Rivera (🇨🇴 Ineos) caught Paret-Peintre🇫🇷 up, and there were 2 Ineos-Décathlon duos ahead, with a gap of 10-20 seconds between both.

Ahead, Rodriguez🇪🇸 seemed to slow down as Ricitello🇺🇸 wouldn't relay. with 500 m to go, the second pair lead by Paret-Peintre🇫🇷 was almost catching up with the first one. But they didn't.

In a strange atmosphere of snow falling from the tree because of the wind (and the helicopter) in the sunshine, Ricitello🇺🇸 launched the sprint and won. He couldn't have won if the final couple of hundred metres hadn't been a festival of hard curves, surprising after 13 km of good mountain road. Rodriguez🇪🇸 may also have won if he had tried to distance the American in the climb, but after his initial attack, he didn't try anything and just pulled the American until the sprint.

Behind, Rivera🇨🇴 finished 3^rd^ as he had just been following Paret-Peintre🇫🇷 for several miles.

G. Martin (🇫🇷 FDJ) was dropped when there were still a dozen of riders in the peloton. He finished only 13^th^ at more than 1 minute behind Unibet's Christophersen...

The best rider from FDJ was actually Daumas🇫🇷 who belongs to their Conti devo team, he stayed longer in the group and finished at a good 7^th^ place with Champoussin (🇫🇷 Astana) and the very vitamined August (🇺🇸 Ineos).

Breuillard (🇫🇷 Total) resisted a long time with the best, he finished 9^th^.

The unfortunate Mariault (🇫🇷 CIC) came 10^th^ but he deserved better as he took the wrong way (car exit) in the nasty final part!

For Cofidis, Meehan🇮🇪 stayed relatively long, but finished a bit far, 16^th^ at 2 minutes. S. Carr🇬🇧 was as useless as usual, dropped once or twice before the climb and finishing at 15 mn.

EF doesn't show much this year. Their best man today is Leonard🇨🇦, 19^th^ at 2mn30... I think that the best performance of the teams they line up on small races this year is yesterday's 3^rd^ place... (and they did quite a number of those small races).

[–] CarstenBoll@feddit.dk 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Quite good racing today. Must be Riccitellos biggest victory so far .

[–] Deschanel2017@lemmings.world 1 points 12 hours ago

Yes, while he has been in the light quite many times already, in terms of victories it was so far very poor.

Well, a stage victory on the Tour of Provence is not very rich either, but the previous one was that Sibiu tour in Romania... 😀 It is not easy to score wins when you are a good climber, but not a member of the top climbers and you don't have much of a punch; the only hope is to be in the right breakaway on the right day without the leaders' peloton chasing you, and avoid being outsprinted by another climber of the same kind as you but with a slightly better finish.

[–] CarstenBoll@feddit.dk 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I love this race, hopefully will have time to watch some this year 😊

[–] Deschanel2017@lemmings.world 1 points 2 days ago

Last year, the first stage was similar (with one big climb more in the first half, and one small climb less in the second half). I thought Pedersen would do big things on that stage, but nothing happened and it ended with a rather large group sprint. And Pedersen did his big thing on the day after, on a much flatter stage which I believed would 100% end in a sprint...

So I don't know about this year 😀

Well, the 3^rd^ stage will normally be a sprint, either a mass sprint, or a group sprint if the wind creates echelons in the Rhône valley (last 50 km).

The 2^nd^ is a mountain finish, so it shall determine the GC winner among climbers and rouleurs-climbers.

Remains the 1^st^ one. If I repeat my thoughts like last year, I would say it is either for a breakaway of small riders (here, small == without a chance for GC == cannot climb at all), or for punchers. But having learned my lesson, I will add that unless some big rider/team is really wanting to make a mess of this stage, as it is the first stage and all sprinters and their teams will be fresh, they have the ressource to neutralise the race in order to have a sprint in the end.

[–] Deschanel2017@lemmings.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Weather forecast for stage 1:

9-12°C, light rain, a little bit of wind in the back in the second half of the stage

[–] Deschanel2017@lemmings.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The rain was stronger than expected and, above all, constant.

The scenario was simply the stereotyped breakaway of non-WT riders. There was no action except for Krag Andersen choosing to go ahead of the bunch in a descent and missing a curve (⇒ withdrawal).

30 km (?) from the line, the gap that had been constant around 2 mn was brought down to 1 mn by Inéos and EF who have been in control of the peloton all day (I mean, for the last 50 km I saw).

Ahead, were now only 3 guys left: one brother Bais (🇮🇹 Polti), Jonas Walton (🇨🇦 CIC) and Arnaud Tendon (🇨🇭 Roubaix). Yes, the same Tendon who was already in a breakaway on Bessèges and who was only caught in the last 50 metres! So, I was thinking, they don't take any chance with him any more, that's why they don't wait to reduce the gap like last week.

Well, Ineos then eased the pace, EF then kind of stepped down, and the gap remained for long around 30 seconds. Walton🇨🇦 who had been struggling for a while, had to let Bais🇮🇹 and Tendon🇨🇭 go.

In the final part, the gap who only around 15 seconds. Ineos had no manpower left (except one guy they intended to save to lead Godon🇫🇷 (?), FDJ pulled the peloton a bit. The peloton split a bit on winding roads. Bais🇮🇹 and Tendon🇨🇭 kept on collaborating, the gap stayed around 10-15 seconds. There were many puddles in the last mile.

In the end, nobody pulled the peloton hard enough to cover those few seconds of gap, the peloton sprinters died 50 metres behind the breakaway, and Tendon🇨🇭 finished ahead of Mattia Bais🇮🇹 who was cooked but never stopped helping!

Peloton's sprint saw Lamperti (🇺🇸 EF), Turgis (🇫🇷 Total) and H. Page (🇫🇷 Cofidis) arrive basically on the same line.

So, the party wasn't over for Contis!!! 🥳 🥳 🥳 This is the second victory in a week for Roubaix, after Heremans on Bessèges (not to mention the performances of Hardouin on that same race).

And that's yet another failure by Word Teams and big Pro Teams: failing to control and especially to finish the job by bringing down a small breakaway.

Oh, I see that Ricitello🇺🇸 is 20 seconds down! He was the GC favourite for Décathlon, and probably among all teams.

edit: ah, no, he's been put pack into the first part of the peloton. Powless (🇺🇸 EF) however is announced as being late by over 1 mn.

Almost 10 withdrawals.

  • Buchmann🇩🇪 for Cofidis: it looks this guy will never be able to recover the level he once had.
  • 3 MBH riders (the team which didn't show up at Bessèges), including Cipollini🇮🇹's nephew. This Pro Team project looks really weird...
  • 2 EF riders.