Christophe Laporte

And it's in Calais, this blistering hot day.

He attacks with Christophe Laporte up the final climb.

They drop everybody.

He drops Laporte.

mention of that uh enneco tour patrick what did you think of that obviously tour of holland enneco tour you it used to be the renew tour the renewed tour still exists but this is just for benevolence it's not including luxembourg and belgium but has the same sponsor name uh it gets very confusing they could have said enneco tour tour holland or something but Whatever.

What did you think of it this year? Obviously last year, Christophe Laporte won it.

Yeah, it was...

It may look on paper like just some TTs with some sprints, and it's just going to be very obvious that the guy who's really good at the TTs is going to win the race, but that wasn't the case.

There's a bit of storytelling in that.

Yeah, Stuyven second, Laporte third.

Um, Visma won three.

They rode it extremely well.

They didn't do what, I mean, famously they did when Van Aert lost to Neilson Powless, but they didn't do "Christophe Laporte's the quickest in this group" 'cause technically he might've been.

Maybe Jasper Stuyven, it would've been a good little battle.

But they didn't go, "Christophe Laporte's the quickest in this group.

We're gonna sacrifice Hagnås and ride for Laporte." They did, "No, we got two guys in a group of six.

Um, yeah, enjoyed it.

And, well, Visma | Lease a Bike cracked it, didn't they? Uh, Christophe Laporte playing policeman perfectly as Per Strand Hagenes, uh, went off the front, held off the advances of Jasper Stuyven.

Uh, all the riders you would expect to be up there really, wasn't it? You know, uh, Jonas Abrahamsson was up there as well for Uno-X Mobility in fifth place.

Paul Lapeira, who's had some great results lately for Decathlon, uh, was mixing in the sprint.

He'd formed part of an 11-man group that went clear just inside the final 10Ks of the race.

With Christophe Laporte also in the group of Visma Lease a Bike, uh, most eyes were on him for the potential sprint finish.

And so Hagenes was covering a lot of the moves that went from the group.

In the end, though, Hagenes caught and countered a move made by Tomas Skujins with around a K to go, and there was just enough hesitation behind him to allow a gap to open up.