2023-06-25 18:14:55
The French cycling champions are known. Valentin Madouas for the men and Victoire Berteau for the women won the right to wear the blue-white-red jersey for a year.
Breton rider Valentin Madouas won alone on Sunday June 25 in the road race of the French Road Cycling Championships in Cassel, in the North, a consecration which comes one week before the start of the Tour de France 2023.
Madouas, 26, who will wear the blue-white-red jersey, took the lead alone about twenty kilometers from the finish after a coup by his Groupama-FDJ team on the grueling and overheated course of Flanders. He succeeds Florian Sénéchal on the list.
Embraced by his father Laurent, himself a former cyclist (eight participations in the Tour de France) on the main square of the northern village, the Finistérien signs the sixth success – the most significant – of his career. Thanks to Rudy Molard, second, Groupama-FDJ managed a double, while Julien Bernard – also the son of a former cyclist, Jean-François Bernard (3rd in the 1987 Tour) – completed the podium.
This victory is a consecration for the “Breton Tractor” (his nickname), capable last year of a third place in the Tour of Flanders as well as a Top 10 in the final classification of the Grande Boucle. The 4,200 meters of elevation gain on Sunday promised a “construction site” in the unanimous opinion of the riders, and the Groupama-FDJ collective attacked the course with a jackhammer.
More than 190 kilometers from the finish (out of 224), a royal group has formed with Thibaut Pinot and David Gaudu, joined a few terminals further by Valentin Madouas, who started against. A breakaway where Marc Madiot’s men were over-represented (8 out of 22 riders). The new wearer of the tricolor jersey never left the outposts afterwards, according to the various junctions, groups coming together and coming apart.
Julian Alaphilippe, tipped to be the big favourite, finally gave up 96 kilometers from the finish before giving up, obviously the victim of a heatstroke. “With this heat [31 degrés, ndlr], there can be failures as much as with the rain or the cold”, announced Benoit Cosnefroy on Friday. He himself suffered a total extinction at the moment of the decisive running movement, on an acceleration of David Gaudu in the brutal climb of the Porte d’Aire (1 km at almost 8%), easily followed on the other hand by Madouas.
David Gaudu as well as Rudy Molard, who managed the junction, offered two final relays to the “Breton Tractor” that neither the heat nor the two beautiful bumps of the 13 km course (for 224 km in total) could stop. Thibaut Pinot, for his final French Championship, finished seventh.
Victoire Berteau finally reports the title to Cofidis
The day before, the northern tracker Victoire Berteau signed the first success of her career in the road race of the French Championships in Cassel, at the same time offering her first blue-white-red jersey to Cofidis, men and women alike.
A 22-year-old runner from Douai who offered her first national triumph to a northern team on her home soil… The final cast of the film for these French Championships did not look out of place with its ultimate setting, the paved main square lined with bricks reds of Cassel surveying the plain of Flanders.
“I’ve been waiting for this win for a long time, it feels good when it happens,” savored the French champion, tricolor knit put on. An image which the Tour de France Women (July 23-30) will have to do without, Victoire Berteau favoring velodromes this summer.
The “Chti” beat a doublet from FDJ-Suez, Marie Le Net and Jade Wiel, champion of France 2019, by being the fastest in the final wall, located a few hundred meters from the line. “I clearly launched my sprint from too far, noted Jade Wiel, who completes this 100% year 2000 podium. In the end, I was not that strong.”
The decisive blow came 30 kilometers from the finish. Contrary to what the very demanding course might have led one to believe, he did not intervene in one of his two bumps but at a time of delay after a large regrouping at the front.
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