Lenny Martinez, the young 19-year-old French hopeful, won the CIC Mont Ventoux on Tuesday, a ProSeries race (2nd division) whose arrival was judged at the top of the Giant of Provence. The Groupama-FDJ climber took the best sprint in a group of four strong men who had made the hole in the final, ahead of Canadian Michael Woods, Briton Simon Carr and Spaniard Cristian Rodriguez by one second, in this order.
Martinez had already stood out last week on the Dauphiné, where he finished in 18th place 9 min 21 sec behind the winner Jonas Vingegaard. Clément Champoussin, fifth at 13 seconds, is the second Frenchman, while Valentin Paret-Peintre finished eighth at 20 seconds.
The race was originally supposed to climb the Ventoux twice, for a total of 154 km, but the organisers, faced with forecasts of violent thunderstorms in the afternoon, decided with the agreement of the teams and the runners to shorten it to 98.3 km. The finish was therefore judged at the top of the first ascent, made by Sault, the less difficult version of this mythical ascent that the Tour de France in particular generally attacks by the other route, by the village of Bédoin.
