A surprising victory in the first stage of the Étoile de Bessèges - Tour du Gard 2026. At the finish line in Bellegarde, placed at the top of the short but steep Côte de la Méditerranée, young Tom Crabbe managed to impose himself ahead of Lukas Kubis (Unibet Rose Rockets) and Clement Izquierdo (Cofidis), conquering the first pro victory of his career and giving the Team Flanders-Baloise its first joy since August 2024.

For the twenty-year-old Belgian, who was second in the sprint behind Kooij in the second stage of the Tour of Britain last year, today's stunning performance also brings the first orange leader's jersey of the French race. Tomorrow he will restart with a 4-second lead over Kubis (his second podium of the season after the third place at the Gran Premio Castellón-Ruta de la Cerámica) and 8 seconds over Izquierdo, at his best placement in over six months.

THE RACE

For most of the stage, attention was focused on the breakaway led by Belgian Victor Vercouillie (Team Flanders-Baloise), Frenchman Léandre Huck (Van Rysel Roubaix), Finn Jaakko Hänninen (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) and Swiss Nils Aebersold (Elite Fondations Cycling Team).

At times enjoying an advantage of up to five minutes, the quartet easily approached the two and a half laps of the final Bellegarde circuit where, due to the pace set behind by the men of Lotto Intermarché and Groupama-FDJ United, their margin began to progressively shrink.

With the gap reduced to around 3'15", just over 60 kilometers from the finish, Samuel Leroux (TotalEnergies) tried to chase the four leaders alone, but his futile attempt was easily neutralized by the peloton after barely ten kilometers. The peloton, led by the riders of Decathlon CMA CGM Team, quickly resumed its compact pursuit of the breakaway riders.

With 20 kilometers to go, Hänninen lost contact with the others, no longer having the strength to keep up with his companions, and was forced to leave the leading trio, which the group was chasing with a delay still over two minutes.

From behind, they first caught Aebersold but not Huck and Vercouillie, who, drawing on their last reserves, stubbornly defended their increasingly slim margin, arriving at the final 700 meters uphill with a scant ten-second advantage. Here, the Belgian then decided to break away, attempting a solo move towards an almost incredible victory, but the peloton behind showed no mercy and caught him 300 meters from the finish line.

However, Tom Crabbe avenged his teammate's great effort by being the only one to hold Kubis's wheel during the Slovak's progression in the last 200 meters, jumping ahead of the Unibet Rose Rockets rival just meters from the line in an incredibly unexpected success.

In this way, conquering what is the first win for Team Flanders Baloise since the third stage of the Arctic Race of Norway 2024 (won on that occasion by Kamiel Bonneu), the number of ProTeams that have secured at least one success in this early part of the season rises to six. Among these are also Unibet with a still-placed Kubis and Cofidis (victorious over the weekend with Coquard) with Clement Izquierdo, who for the first time since July 30, 2025 (when he won the fifth stage of the Ethias-Tour de Wallonie) returns to a top-three finish.