It was a pleasant surprise. The removal of the Route des Crêtes could let us fear a bore fest with a massive sprint in the end. But as the race was shorter it got more nervous and uncontrollable. It still ended in a massive bunch sprint but there was 70 km of action since the final section of the Espigoulier climb, as the traditional scenario of a breakaway of small riders 2-3 mn ahead was broken as Décathlon pulled the peloton hard and caught the breakaway just at the bottom at the descent. Then until the end, there were many attacks, many groups splitting, rejoining, splitting again, pushing, letting go, etc. Lapeira did a significant 1-man breakaway but he is no Evenepoel and was caught as soon as the road started rising a bit for the last climb. Mifsud attacked twice in this last climb; the first time he caught Lapeira but was caught up by the peloton soon after, the second one near the top brought him and two other riders almost under the flamme rouge! Unfortunately, while Mifsud (now Polti) and Hardouin (Roubaix) gave all they had from the attack til the end, one of those 3 riders (Mariault from CIC) was more interested in sabotaging the breakaway. This attitude turned out to be utterly stupid as nobody in his team scored a single point in the end... The stubborn Mifsud however managed to stay in the bunch and score a couple of points.