As well as a vital final racing test for many of the world's best GC riders who have based their season around targeting the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes — the much-discussed new name of the race formerly known as the Dauphiné — is a similarly important test for the strength of their teams. And on the basis of this year's edition, many of the peloton's best will feel they have some issues to address between now and the start of the Grande Boucle in three weeks' time.
This was a race characterised by a lack of control, reflected by the fact that all three of the first road stages were won by riders in the breakaway. Aided by hilly terrain, opportunistic puncheurs and rouleurs escaped up the road towards the start of each stage, and on each occasion the teams chasing in the peloton were unable to chase them down. First Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) claimed success on a chaotic opening day in which a large group broke clear and made it to the finish, beginning a five-day spell in the yellow jersey; then Anthon Charmig (Uno-X Mobility) capitalised as no team in the peloton chose to chase the break the following day; and then on stage four, on a day that looked likely to be one for the sprinters, a group led by Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) just about managed to hold off the charging bunch by a matter of seconds.
While none of these breakaways posed genuine threats to the GC, panic ensued on stage six when a big break featuring genuine contenders went clear. Chief among them was the talented young Australian climber Luke Tuckwell — whose climbing credentials were proven earlier this year when he finished sixth at the Tour de Romandie — who, impervious to the efforts of the chasing peloton behind, gained about three minutes on the GC favourites, with his teammate Maxim Van Gils capping off a superb day for Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe by claiming the stage win. With just two days left, the top contenders were left with multiple minutes to make up on the Australian if they were to win the yellow jersey.
This lack of control exposed a potential weakness in one of the men expected to light up the Tour de France next month: Paul Seixas, and the relative strength of his Decathlon CMA CGM team compared with their better-established rivals. Seixas was the top favourite going into this race, so it was up to Decathlon to control it; but while the teenage sensation might have a talent comparable to Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, his Decathlon team aren't at the level — in wealth or talent — of their respective superteams UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike. They struggled to control the race, and lost their grip on stage six, failing to place a man in the massive break that escaped and lacking the strength to bring it back. Ultimately all this proved to be moot as Seixas withdrew from the race in the aftermath of a crash (when, it must be said, his team did a great job pacing him back into the peloton). But their race was a sobering reminder of what the teenager is up against this July, and might dampen the feverish expectations that have spread across France these past months.
While Decathlon might have anticipated struggling, UAE Team Emirates-XRG's underwhelming performances might be causing some surprise and alarm so close to the Tour de France and their defence of Tadej Pogačar's yellow jersey. The problems began on the opening stage, when key climber João Almeida was unable to provide any support to GC leader Isaac del Toro in the mountains, leaving him isolated. Then on the stage three team time trial, they were strikingly under-par, finishing well down in ninth, a whole one minute and one second slower than their eternal rivals Visma-Lease a Bike, and leaving del Toro with a lot to do to take the yellow jersey.
By contrast, Visma-Lease a Bike looked in strong shape. Not only did they win that team time trial with a powerful performance in which Netcompany Ineos were the only team to come within 29 seconds of them — a very encouraging sign ahead of the team time trial set to open the Tour de France next month — they were also the first team to successfully chase down the break and win from the peloton, when Wout van Aert triumphed in a bunch sprint on stage five. There were still concerns about van Aert's fitness, to the extent that he abandoned the race the following day, but both Ben Tulett and Jørgen Nordhagen climbed well and vastly outperformed their UAE Team Emirates-XRG counterparts, while Bruno Armirail provided a vital foil by marking the dangerous break that went clear on stage six.
Heading into the final weekend of mountain stages, the work from all these Visma-Lease a Bike domestiques had helped ensure that their leader Matteo Jorgenson was the closest of the GC favourites to Tuckwell in the yellow jersey. Yet in the mountains, a new team took the initiative: Lidl-Trek, who did much of the pace-setting at the front of the peloton and launched their GC leader Juan Ayuso halfway up the summit finish of the Grand Colombier. The team has invested a lot in the young Spaniard's talent, and hopes that he will be the man to make them competitive at the Tour de France; the way he distanced everyone on the Colombier suggested he might be ready to make that leap, as well as being a yellow jersey candidate for this race.
Ultimately, however, it was a familiar team who rose to the fore when it counted to take overall victory. UAE Team Emirates-XRG's del Toro might have hesitated at first, but he accelerated towards the top of the Grand Colombier, catching Ayuso before the summit and then passing him to solo for the stage win, in the process moving to just 49 seconds from Tuckwell's yellow jersey. And on the climactic stage that followed, Del Toro made child's play of that deficit with an imperious climbing performance on the Plateau de Solaison, attacking early — after Ayuso's Lidl-Trek made another statement of intent by controlling the peloton all day — to finish a whole minute ahead of the rest of his rivals.
The lack of control throughout the race was reflected by the fact that Tuckwell managed to hang on to second overall, with Ayuso doing enough to leapfrog Jorgenson onto the podium, albeit having to settle for third spot. But ultimately the individual brilliance of del Toro won out, even while the rest of his UAE team failed to offer the kind of support we're used to seeing them deliver. As worrying as some of the under-par performances from the squad as a whole might be, Pogačar could not ask for a better super-domestique at the Tour de France than Isaac del Toro.
