00:01On to the eighth and final stage of the Tour Auvergne Rhône-Alpes.
00:05An absolute beast and a warm-up of sorts for stage 15 of this year's Tour de France,
00:09which also finishes on the Plateau de Solaison.
00:12Luke Tuckwell still leads, but the GC favourites are breathing down his neck,
00:15and two of his teammates, Danny Martinez and Kellam Thornley, have abandoned the race.
00:20I mean, it's obviously not the situation we'd like to be in,
00:23but I mean, a lot of teams are down a lot of riders,
00:26and today, because of how the parkour is, I think it's kind of one of those days where,
00:31even if you have teammates, it's still all about the legs on how the leaders do on the climbs.
00:37The Aussie is 42 seconds ahead of Matteo Jorgensen and 49 clear of Isaac Del Toro,
00:42and it's the Mexican champion who looks the most likely to conquer the race
00:46after his stage victory yesterday on Grand Colombier.
00:49I need to take like 47 seconds to the first guy and then don't lose time with the other ones,
00:55like 7 seconds to Jorgensen and then maybe I can win.
00:59Sounds easy.
01:01Pretty much, when you say like this.
01:04But it's not. Thank you.
01:06Paul Sexass will be on the start line today after his rollercoaster stage 7,
01:10featuring an early crash and an epic chase.
01:16It definitely hurts a bit, but it's the last day and we'll give everything.
01:20All the medical staff have done a great job.
01:22I can hold the handlebars, but my arm is sore so it's not easy on the descents.
01:27I'll do what I can. I had a pretty good night, so we'll just have to see how it goes.
01:35Stage 8 is only 120 kilometres, but still boasts almost 4000 metres of climbing,
01:41with the Col du Pré, the Monte de Bizanne, the Col des Aravis and the Plateau de Solézon
01:4611.3 kilometres at 9.1%.
01:49It is going to be a grueling day in the saddle and a fitting finale
01:53for one of the toughest week-long stage races on the calendar.
02:02There were eight riders in the breakaway today,
02:04most of whom we've seen on the attack in recent days,
02:07and three of them belong to net company INEOS.
02:10Laurence Duplus, Carlos Rodriguez and Kevin Vauquelin.
02:13The British squad are now outside the top ten on GC
02:16and we're targeting a stage win.
02:18Harold Tejada, Valentin Paris-Pintre and Georg Steinhauser were also in there,
02:22along with Léo Biziot, a teammate of Paul Sexas,
02:25and Clément Brazafonso in the polka dot jersey.
02:28The Frenchman looking to seal victory in the mountains classification.
02:32And that is exactly what he did after taking a maximum haul on the first two climbs,
02:36building an unassailable lead.
02:39Brazafonso the top climber of this 78th edition.
02:43The maximum gap between break and peloton was about 2 minutes 40,
02:47but it was down to a minute and a half as they hit the Col des Aravis.
02:51Lidltrek setting the tempo as they caught Peo Bilbao,
02:53who had tried unsuccessfully to bridge across.
02:56Meanwhile, Sexas was forced to abandon earlier in the day,
03:00Tecathlon not taking any risks with their young star ahead of the Tour de France.
03:05Lidltrek continuing to put pressure on the break,
03:07and the gap was down to under a minute as they approached the top of the Col des Aravis.
03:11It didn't look like the eight guys up at the front would be going all the way.
03:18Juan Ayuso's team mates still doing the lion's share of work in the peloton,
03:22with UAE and Visma just taking a back seat for now.
03:25As for the race leader Luke Tuckwell,
03:27the hike to the Plateau de Solézan would just be a matter of survival.
03:34On to the final climb then of this Tour Verne-Rhône-Alpes,
03:38and UAE suddenly swarmed at the front of the GC group for del Toro,
03:41setting a tempo that a lot of riders were unable to handle.
03:47Valentin Paré-Pintre appeared to be the strongest man in the breakaway,
03:51although Rodriguez was holding on as De Plus faded.
03:59And now in difficulty, the yellow jersey.
04:04Maxime Van Gilles looks around, he's going to try and pace him.
04:09Well, Paré-Pintre was named the day's most combative rider.
04:12He and Rodriguez would be the last men standing from the breakaway
04:15because just behind them, UAE were getting ready to launch del Toro.
04:21And here is now the bid to win this race.
04:25Del Toro starts and he just rides away.
04:29Iza del Toro has just exploded into life.
04:34The Mexican champion quickly joining the two leaders
04:37and then sailing away solo with around 8km to go.
04:40The fight for the podium was very much on, meanwhile,
04:44between Tuckwell, Ayuso and Jorgensen.
04:46The young Australian, around 25 seconds behind his two rivals,
04:50they were in a group with Tobias Johannesson and Cristian Rodriguez.
04:54But Ayuso then attacked as well in his quest for the overall podium.
04:58Jorgensen and the rest unable to respond.
05:03With Del Toro heading for victory, Jorgensen was now struggling to save his spot on the podium.
05:08The American would even be caught by Tuckwell before the end of the climb.
05:11A superb effort from the young Australian, ably assisted by Maxime Van Gilles.
05:15Jorgensen fighting all the way, but this wasn't to be Vismolisa Bike's week.
05:21Instead it was UAE team member at XRG preparing to celebrate victory
05:25with the overall podium taking shape.
05:28Ayuso third, Tuckwell second and Torito in first.
05:37And he gets ready to take the spoils of victory for two days running.
05:43The Mexican majestically rides to the top of this mountain.
05:49Smiles from Isaac Del Toro.
05:52It's back-to-back wins and now the stopwatch starts.
05:56Del Toro rampages his way up the mountain.
06:04Isaac Del Toro proved on this final weekend that he was the number one climber in the race.
06:09The Mexican denied a proper battle with Sex Ass, but he dominated the rest of the field
06:13to take his third GC win of the season after the UAE Tour and Torreno Adriatico.
06:18That's super nice, honestly. I'm super happy about today.
06:21I did the recon some months ago.
06:23I didn't know until two days ago this was the same climber that we do,
06:28but it was nice to remember the recon with Tade.
06:32And it's super cool to have the victory with the team. It's just insane.
06:41Del Toro winning the stage by exactly a minute, followed by Ayuso and Johansson.
06:46A great effort from Tuckwell to finish in the same group as Jorgensen
06:49and stay on the overall podium.
06:52This is the sixth GC win of Del Toro's career, and all three this year have come at World Tour
06:57level.
06:58His final margin of victory, 54 seconds over Tuckwell,
07:01with Ayuso sneaking ahead of Jorgensen into third place.
07:06Nadav Reisberg led the points classification practically from start to finish.
07:10The NSN rider taking green by a comfortable margin of 16 points from Raul Garcia-Pierna.
07:17And Braz Afonso dominated the mountains classification.
07:21Like Reisberg, he led from stage two onwards.
07:2431 points today to finish on 71 with Del Toro in second.
07:28The top three overall were also the top three in the youth classification,
07:32with Del Toro, 22, ahead of 21-year-old Tuckwell and 23-year-old Ayuso.
07:38The kids taking over at the Tour Overno-Rhône-Alpes,
07:40as the focus now switches to the big one, the Tour de France,
07:43which starts in Barcelona on July the 4th.
07:46Join us for that in a few weeks, and thanks for watching.
07:49And now we're going to see the Nordisk Multicati.
07:53Thank you so much for joining us.
07:55We've got to look at the Ragnarok Tuckwell.
