Michael Matthews wins GP de Québec as late attack from Pogacar and De Lie fails

The GP de Québec has been heavily attacked and was without a doubt one of the hardest of recent year. Michael Matthews took the win in the final sprint, his third in the Canadian classic, after Tadej Pogacar's late attack was caught.

The Canadian race began with a breakaway of three with Frank van den Broek of Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL, Artem Schmidt of INEOS Grenadiers and Félix Hamel of the Canadian national team. A trio that seemingly didn't create much threat to the peloton.

With 65 kilometers to go it became a duo as Hamel was dropped, and last year's second place Corbin Strong abandoned the race prematurely. UAE Team Emirates often did work on the climbs trying to create fatigue within the sprinter field.

With two laps to go Alex Baudin and Gil Gelders attacked from the peloton on the final climb, getting a small gap over the peloton. They were caught with 15 kilometers to go however and very shortly after the last survivors of the breakaway did as well.

Jan Tratnik attacked then on the penultimate lap, with UAE also trying to carry a strong pace, but unsuccessfully breaking away from the peloton. With 11 kilometers to go Visma attacked once again, now with Matteo Jorgenson going off the front.

Jorgenson was caught as the riders started the penultimate ramp... Julian Alaphilippe launched an attack that exploded the peloton. Tadej Pogacar was in the group and attacked in the final true small ascent, bringing with him only Arnaud De Lie. Jenno Berckmoes and Maxim van Gils of Lotto joined the duo and paced in order to keep De Lie in the head of the race, but everyone in the group was burned out and they were caught with around 500 meters to go.

Bahrain led out the sprint and Michael Matthews launched it early. The Australian had the best legs on the final sprint and despite launching early he had very strong legs and took the victory ahead of Biniam Girmay and a surprise in Rudy Molard.