He will have believed for a few seconds, before the photo-finish comes to bring him a cruel disillusion. Benoît Cosnefroy, the young French rider (26 years old) from AG2R Citroën, finished 2nd in the Amstel Gold Race this Sunday, after a breathless finish. And with a hell of a hiccup on arrival: first announced the winner, the Frenchman finally had to give up his joy to the Polish Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos), who therefore beat him by a few centimeters in the sprint. A gut…
First French podium since… 1981
Everything was therefore reversed in a few seconds. The first broadcast images of the finish seem to show Kwiatowski winning… and the information quickly goes back to the runners. “Ah pu…, they announce Kwiato”, first breathes Cosnefroy, hanging on his headset. The suspense does not last much longer: he is finally second. “Ah well there… it’s not great”. Cosnefroy’s hot reaction, while confusion still reigned at the finish of the race and the images came to disavow the initial announcement of the race organizers, says it all with a frustration mainly dominated by incomprehension. A few meters away, Kwiatkowski went from hell to heaven: in 2017, the Pole had already finished second after a lost sprint against Belgian Philippe Gilbert, and thought he was seeing the scenario repeat itself. In the end, he won his second Amstel Gold Race, after his first title in 2015.
On the AG2R-Citroën side, this disillusion does not detract from Cosnefroy’s historic performance for French cycling. If Julian Alaphilippe had come close in 2019 with a fourth place, it is only the third time that a French rider has finished on the podium of the Amstel Gold Race after Jean Stablinski, winner in 1966, and Bernard Hinault, crowned in 1981.
Escaped 20 kilometers from the finish
Thwarting the predictions announcing a favorite Mathieu Van de Poel (Alpecin – Fenix), Benoît Cosnefroy and Michal Kwiatkowski escaped from the leading peloton 20 kilometers from the finish and never gave up their lead, at times having more than 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the leading group. The final battle between the two men will have written an epic story which ended, as in the last edition, with a decided sprint at the photo-finish and a hair’s breadth for the winner. Who, unfortunately, is not French this Sunday.