Juan Pedro Lopez has held on to secure overall victory at the 2024 Tour of the Alps after a brave defence of his race lead on a final stage won from a reduced bunch by Aurelien Paret-Peintre.
With no breakaway forming, it was all of the big names at the front as the climbing began in earnest with just under 60km to go. On the first climb of the day, Geraint Thomas was looking bright, attacking numerous times and eventually dragging Giulio Pellizzari and Hugh Carthy clear with him, gaining 30 seconds on the peloton as the descent started.
As those three were caught at the start of the next climb, Lidl-Trek's Amanuel Ghebrigzabier began to set a high pace on the front to discourage any future attacks. That worked for a while, until with just over 32km to go, Antonio Tiberi launched an attack, quickly gaining around 15 seconds before being reeled back in by the bunch.
Seeing his teammate caught, Wout Poels then fired off in a counter-attack, getting a clear gap for himself at the top of the climb. Again though, as happened with the earlier attack, despite having a gap at the top, the descent saw Poels slowly pulled back by the peloton with things all back together at the front as the 2024 Tour of the Alps entered the final 10km.
With one little kicker still to come, the GC riders had one last chance to do something. On that rise, Romain Bardet attacked, followed by Ben O'Connor and although Juan Pedro Lopez initially struggled, he too eventually joined them with Tiberi. With no rider able to really split things though, and Lopez covering moves incredibly well, it eventually went all the way down to a bunch sprint.
In the race for the line, Aurelien Paret-Peintre, giving Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team their 10th win of the season already, ahead of Tiberi and Valentin Paret-Peintre in third.
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