TotalEnergies rider Julien Simon outran Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates) to win the stage 1 of Tour du Limousin-Nouvelle Aquitaine on 16th August, Tuesday. Alex Aranburu (Movistar) finished in third place. Simon’s final attack at La Souterraine turned out to be a decisive one and won him first place on the podium.
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Although Rui Oliveira was leading the peloton, but he turned out to be no match for the perfect timing of Simon. Trentin launched a sprint from a distance in his last try to catch onto Simon but it did not quite work out for him as he ended up in second place.
This counts as the 13th win for Simon throughout his career and a third of this season. Nevertheless, it was not an easy one to win as the first real breakaway came in only as the stage had advanced. Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) launched an early attack only to fail.
Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hôtels-KTM) suffered from a punctured tire in the last 50km to go and it slowed him down. The peloton saw a crash that took down Benoît Cosnefroy (AG2R Citröen), Guillaume Martin (Cofidis), and Aranburu but all three of them quickly joined again.
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Julien Simon has now gained a lead of a whole second over Trentin while Alex Aranburu fell further down with five seconds.
Results
| POS | RIDER | TEAM | TIME |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Julien Simon | TotalEnergies | 03:59:42 |
| 2 | Matteo Trentin | UAE Team Emirates | + 00 |
| 3 | Alex Aranburu | Movistar Team | + 00 |
| 4 | Vincenzo Albanese | EOLO-Kometa Cycling Team | + 00 |
| 5 | Clément Venturini | AG2R Citroën Team | + 00 |
| 6 | Hugo Page | Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert | + 00 |
| 7 | Iván García Cortina | Movistar Team | + 00 |
| 8 | Romain Cardis | St Michel-Auber 93 | + 00 |
| 9 | Kevin Geniets | Groupama-FDJ | + 00 |
| 10 | Cyril Barthe | B&B Hotels-KTM | + 00 |
Also Read: Tour of Denmark: Olav Kooij Dominates The Opening Stage
Featured Image Via YouTube/ Team TotalEnergies
