Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) made it two wins in a row at Etoile de Besseges, but while his first victory was a straight forward bunch sprint, his second was taken in a tense standoff between the remnants of the day's breakaway, who refused to succumb, and the charging peloton.
At first there were five riders in the day's move, on the 153km stage from Nîmes to Méjannes-le-Clap, having established the breakaway in the first kilometres. Quentin Pacher (Delko Marseille-Provence KTM), Dimitri Claeys (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Nicolas Baldo (Team Roth), Antoine Leleu (Veranclassic-AGO) and Kai Reus (Vérandas Willems) seemed the typical sacrificial lambs, and the gap of four minutes to the peloton seemed perfectly manageable.
But as the five riders approached the day's only climb, the category 2 Côte de Méjannes, with 3:05 on the bunch, and Reus put in an attack that distanced Leleu. Claeys then accelerated as the climb kicked in, and the effort was too much for Pacher and he had to let go of the group. Now with only three men, it seemed the breakaway's chances should dim, but the attacks only energised the remaining three leaders who built up another minute on the peloton.
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As the leaders entered the five 7.7km finishing circuits, they had 38km to go and around 4:00 advantage, and it became clear that the peloton would have ride hard to bring back the trio before the finish line. 27km and 3:15. 21km and 2:30. With three laps to go, Baldo cracked, leaving just two men to withstand the peloton - could they do it?
15km and 2:02. FDJ came to the front for Demare - but when the clock still read 1:40 at 11km remaining, it looked like they'd left it too late. The bell rang for just under 8km to go, and the duo of Reus and Claeys dug deep - they had less than a minute's lead and no time for games.
With two kilometres left, the pair had just 18 seconds on the bunch, and over the next 1000m only managed to lose 10 seconds. The flamme rouge in sight, Claeys attacked leaving Reus on his own. Without help, the Belgian was unable to hold off the sprint of Coquard, who surged past with IAM's Matteo Pelucchi on his wheel just 10m from the line. Claeys held on for third.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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