Team News: Win for Doull in Provence

Owain Doull took an impressive and perfectly measured victory from the breakaway on the final stage of the Tour de La Provence.

Team News: Win for Doull in Provence

Owain Doull took an impressive and perfectly measured victory from the breakaway on the final stage of the Tour de La Provence. The Welshman found himself in a four-man group which held a strong advantage heading into the latter part of the race. With a number of pure sprinters dropped behind, the peloton were narrowly unable to reel in the quartet, with Doull playing it cool to win the sprint into Aix-en-Provence. The peloton arrived just six seconds later, with Eddie Dunbar able to seal sixth place overall.

The result was just reward for an attacking performance on the final day. Ian Stannard, Gianni Moscon and Pavel Sivakov had all tried to force their way into breakaway moves before Doull finally put himself in position.

Owain Doull: “It was a hard day and we worked together really well as a four. I was quite confident with the finish and I knew most of the guys, and I had good legs so I was quite happy to wait for the sprint. Around the 30km (to go) mark when we still had around four minutes, I thought we had a chance. If we stayed together on the climb, I knew the run-in from last year was really fast. If we stayed as a group and rotated fast I knew we’d have a chance. With around 2 or 3km to go, I knew we’d stay away – then it starts to get a bit tactical and thinking about the sprint. This is my first professional win in Europe. I’ve won one race before in Australia. It’s nice to get the team’s first win of the year and it’s a good sign before the Classics.”

1. Owain Doull (Team INEOS) 4:07:32
2. Matthias Brande (Israel Start-Up Nation) s.t.
3. Ian Garrison (Deceuninck – Quick-Step) +2″
4. Romain Combaud (Nippo Delko One Provence) s.t.
5. Alexey Lutsenko (Astana)

Others
34 Quintana
44 Hugh Carthy
56 Chris Lawless
64 Connor Swift
65 Ian Stannard
114 Charlie Quarterman

Overall
1. Quintana
2. Vlasov
3. Lutsenko
4. Hugh Carthy
6. Eddie Dunbar