Magical Mads Pedersen wins 2025 Tour de la Provence GC; Sam Bennett wins crash-affected final stage sprint

Lidl-Trek's Mads Pedersen has secured the general classification win at the 2025 Tour de la Provence, after Sam Bennett sprinted to the win on the final stage in Arles.

It took a while, but when the day's breakaway finally made their decisive move, six riders got themselves up the road. Among that number were notable names such as young rider's jersey wearer Raúl García Pierna of the Arkéa - B&B Hotels team, and King of the Mountains classification leader Damien Girard, of Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur. At 50km to go though, their advantage over the peloton had already been cut to under the one-minute mark. The break certainly weren't giving up without a fight though, keeping the gap steady at around 55 seconds as the final 20km was reached. 

At 10km to go, the break, now down to just five riders, was still around 36 seconds clear of the peloton, giving the sprint trains plenty to think about heading into the finale. Lidl-Trek especially were working hard on the front of the peloton though, and at 5km to go, just 14 seconds was the gap. Finally, just inside the final kilometre, the attackers were caught. Then, the sprint for the win began in the fight for the line, victory went to Sam Bennett ahead of Marijn van den Berg, after a big crash affected Pascal Ackermann.

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