Etoile de Bessèges - Tour du Gard 2025 Stage 4

February 8, 2025 The GC will be decided between today on Le Mont Bouquet and tomorrow in the 10KM ITT. The stage finishes today on top of Le Mont Bouquet which is a 2.7KM climb with an average grade of over 10%. Rain and cold hung around from yesterday to make a miserable day on the bike but four riders braved the conditions including Simon Dehairs of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Alexys Brunel of TotalEnergies, Victor Vercouillie of Flanders-Baloise, and Killian Théot of Van Rysel Roubaix who got up the road to take on a reduced route of 119KM. Arkéa-B&B Hotels took up the chase and kept the break around 2 minutes with 60KM to go. Brunel and Théot left the other two riders with 25KM to go but their gap was dwindling to around 1 minute. The back door swung wide open in the bunch and as the break was caught with 4.5KM to go, only about 20 riders were left in contention. Climbing began with 4KM to go after a sharp left turn in Brouzet-lès-Alès, it wasn't long before the hostilities began. St. Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 set a hard pace but it was Kévin Vauquelin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels who made the first move at 3KM from the line. It was a strong attack, no one reacted and he was immediately gone. Clouds of exhaled breath puffed around the chase group of Kevin Geniets of Groupama-FDJ, Nicolas Breuillard of St. Michel-Preference Home-Auber93, and Dylan Teuns of Cofidis as they tried to track down Thomas Champion of St. Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 who was in between them and Vauquelin. Vauquelin would not be caught however. He crossed the line atop Le Mont Bouquet in cloud and fog to take the victory. Nearly a half a minute later, Champion came home for second place. In the group of three behind, Breuillard attacked Geniets and Teuns with 350M to go and grabbed third place to complete a spectacular day out for St. Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 who had two riders on the podium and three in the top six. Geniets beat out Teuns for fourth and fifth respectively. Vauquelin now holds the GC lead with 51 seconds on Breuillard and 57 seconds on Geniets.