Benjamin Thomas wins Etoile de Bessèges' stages 4 with a late solo attack

The French rider from Cofidis showed brilliant legs in the climb before making the decisive split in the descent and attacking the leading group in the final kilometers to take the win.

The breakaway resisted until the final climb today in what is known as the raid loop of Bessèges, a strong group formed in the head of race by Magnus Sheffield (INEOS Grenadiers), Bruno Armirail (Groupama - FDJ), Hugo Houle (Israel - Premier Tech), Sebastien Schönberger (B&B Hotels - KTM), Jérémy Cabot (TotalEnergies), Thibault Guernalec (Team Arkéa Samsic) and Samuel Zoccarato (Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè).

In the final climb EF made things hard from the start. Bettiol and Pierre Latour set some attacks but a medium-sized group still made it through the summit. However in the descent risks were taken from Thomas himself, with only Alberto Bettiol and Tobias Johannessen keeping up, with Richard Carapaz crashing right behind them, loosing his chances of fighting for the GC.

After not seeing much collaboration in the trio Benjamin Thomas attacked with 3 kilometers to go and his rivals could not get in the slipstream. He took the win 9 seconds ahead of the chasing group and 15 over the remains of the peloton. The Cofidis rider is now also the new leader of the overall classification.