The last day of racing at the Alpes Isère Tour saw the peloton faced with by far the hardest day of the race and a stage that included roughly 4000 metres of climbing throughout the day.
From the start a good pace was set in the bunch with multiple attacks before a strong move went on the second climb of the day. However, the peloton kept them in check and as they entered the final 60 kilometres everything was all back together with Robbe Dhondt, Vincent Bodet, Oliver Peace and Jacob Bush representing the team in the reduced peloton; after some good earlier positioning work by Frank Aron Ragilo. The pace continued to ramp up throughout the afternoon and it was a race of attrition with Peace and Dhondt making the front group of around 25 that would go onto the final climb together. From there, it was down to who was the strongest on the day with a duo going on to fight for the stage win. Peace and Dhondt battled over the ascents in a chasing group, before Dhondt ultimately crossed the line in 13th place on the day; ending the race overall in 12th on GC with the team.
Dhondt expressed: “Today was a special but hard day. We were really locked in as a team for today, especially after the improvement points we built on from the previous stages. Only luck wasn’t really on our side as I had a small crash on the uphill in the stage, and a couple of bike changes, but I could come back with help from the team. Then on the second last climb we were always together as a team and the group kept getting reduced. In the end, it was only Oliver and me left and we could really hold on for a long time. On the final climb the GC favourites started to attack and there was still a lot of climbing to go so especially after spending energy yesterday, I didn’t want to go into the red and blow. We just kept our own pace on the climb and then to the finish. We made the best out of it today, it was the best team performance of the week I think. I’m looking forward to improving these points more in the next climbing races; the shape is there. We have a young team but a strong team and this is something we can build on for the rest of the season.”
