Kevin Vauquelin took solo victory on stage 4 of Étoile de Bessèges(Image credit: Getty Images)
An early breakaway on the road at Étoile de Bessèges(Image credit: Getty Images)
Arnaud Demare (Arkea-B&B Hotels) riding through torrid weather conditions on stage 4 of Étoile de Bessèges(Image credit: Getty Images)
A snapshot of the peloton early in stage 4 of Étoile de Bessèges(Image credit: Getty Images)
Dylan Vandenstorme (Flanders-Baloise) and Arnaud De Lie (Lotto) on the start line(Image credit: Getty Images)
Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) en route to stage victory on stage 4 of Étoile de Bessèges (Image credit: Getty Images)
The Queen Stage of the Etoile de Besseges 2025 was raced in atrocious weather but, despite route changes, the race still went up Le Mont Bouquet with race favourite Kevin Vauquelin of Arkea-B&B Hotels putting in a brutal attack on the final climb riding to victory and the race lead.
Behind the 23-year-old French star saw St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 duo of Thomas Champion and Nicolas Breuillard finish in second and third.
The fourth stage of the race was hit by yet more horrible weather with heavy rain throughout the day. The weather meant that the stage had to be shortened from 155.7km to 135km with a loop around Saint-Quetin removed. Later in the stage, the Côte des Concluses was also taken out of the stage – taking off yet another 16km, reducing the stage to 119km.
Spanish second division squad, Equipo Kern Pharma, were the latest team to leave the race saying they had an "absence of complete safety guarantees." With them leaving, along with King of the Mountains leader Axandre Van Petegem (Wagner Bazin WB) and Sasha Weemaes (Wagner Bazin WB), it left just 70 riders in the peloton.
It took just under 30km of racing before a breakaway formed at the base of the first climb of the day, the Côte Clarensac, with new mountain jersey Victor Vercouillie (Flanders-Baloise) led a group of five with Simon Dehairs (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Alexys Brunel (TotalEnergies) and Killian Theot (Van Rysel Roubaix) with Jocelyn Baguelin (Wagner Bazin WB) briefly joining before getting dropped. The break’s maximum gap was just under two minutes.
The race was ridden at a high speed with Arkea-B&B Hotels leading the bunch for their leader Kevin Vauquelin. The pace was very hard from the French WorldTour squad which forced the break to split as Brunel and Theot leaving Dehairs and Vercouillie left behind.
With Brunel and Theot pushing hard out front the peloton saw Cofidis join Arkea-B&B Hotels up front into the last 10km. The peloton was severely reduced in the abysmal weather as the race got closer and closer to the Mont Bouquet.
The break was caught right at the bottom of Mont Bouquet with Groupama-FDJ taking over the pacing onto the climb. But it was St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 that put in the first moves.
Nine riders quickly opened a gap with some recovering from poor positioning as they bridged back to the leaders. Race leader, Arnaud De Lie (Lotto), held on to begin with but he started to slip after about 1km of riding up the climb.
Moments later there was an extremely powerful attack from Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) with no one even trying to follow him as he rode away solo. Behind, the chase broke down with four riders breaking away including Dylan Teuns (Cofidis) and Kevin Geniets (Groupama-FDJ).
That move was the decisive one, with Vauquelin finishing solo with an impressive gap over surprise second and third-place St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 riders of Thomas Champion and Nicolas Breuillard.
The third-division French team managed to place three riders in the top six with Theo Delacroix finishing in 6th place after his teammates. Other WorldTour riders including La Fleche Wallonne winner Dylan Teuns and Luxembourg national champion Kevin Geniets were the fourth and fifth riders respectively but clearly lacked the punch compared to the might of Vauquelin.
There was also a very impressive performance from Maltese rider, Andrea Mifsud (Nice Métropole Côte d’Azur) who managed to finish in eighth position in and amongst WorldTour riders.
Vauquelin takes a 51-second lead over Breuillard going into the final stage which is set to be an individual time trial around Ales with an uphill finish to the Hermitage in the town. It is 10.6km long and will make the final GC of this tumultuous race.
