A bit less than a week after the end of the Tour de France, Romain Grégoire used his very last bullets on Saturday in the Klasikoa San Sebastián. Although he was unable to enter the first two groups after the decisive climb of Erlaitz, the Frenchman still fought to the end to secure a fifteenth place in Spain’s only WorldTour event.
A year after being slightly postponed due to the Olympic Games, the Klasikoa San Sebastian was back to its usual position on the cycling calendar, just a week after the Tour de France. Therefore, and as usual, the bunch brought together some participants in the “Grande Boucle” and riders more or less advanced in their return to competition. As for the Groupama-FDJ cycling team, only Romain Grégoire was present after doing the Tour, and he was lining up alongside teammates who had recently taken part in the Tour de Wallonie or had just completed a training camp in the Alps. While the early part of the race saw a twelve-man breakaway develop, the French rider unfortunately lost one of his colleagues after about two hours of riding, as Kevin Geniets was forced to abandon the race following a crash. In the meantime, the leading group never enjoyed an advantage bigger than three minutes due to careful control of the peloton. With eighty kilometers to go, as they crossed the finish line in San Sebastian on the opposite side, before tackling the well-known Jaizkibel, the gap even reduced to less than a minute.
“We rode the race we needed to,” Philippe Mauduit
“We know that the Jaizkibel traditionally makes an initial selection, but that the truly strategic point is the Erlaitz climb,” explained Philippe Mauduit. “Knowing this, we were positioned at the bottom of the Jaizkibel and the bottom of Erlaitz to put Romain and our climbers in the best possible position. The Jaizkibel wasn’t climbed very fast this year compared to other editions, and so everything happened in Erlaitz.” Perfectly positioned by his teammates before tackling the four kilometers at 10%, Romain Grégoire was able to really get in the mix. At the foot, he even jumped on the wheel of Primoz Roglic, who made the first attack among the favorites. However, the young man from Besançon was unable to follow the second offensive a few moments later. “Romain managed to hang on to the right groups in the first part of the climb, then he cracked a bit about one kilometre from the summit,” Philippe said. With forty kilometres to go, the Groupama-FDJ puncher was therefore about 1’30 behind the leading duo made of Isaac del Tor and Giulio Ciccone, and forty seconds behind a group of nine chasers.
Despite some fifteen kilometres of flat roads following the descent of Erlaitz to reach the climb of Murgil Tontorra (2 km at 9.6%), the first two groups didn’t get caught. “At the top of Erlaitz, the peloton was split into groups of ten, and around forty riders got together before crossing the finish line in San Sebastian,” Philippe added. “On the final climb, this group exploded again.” A few riders broke away, and Romain Grégoire ultimately arrived two minutes after Ciccone, the day’s winner. The Frenchman came back at the very last moment, during his final sprint, to a small group fighting for 10th place. He eventually took 15th. “When you come out of the Tour, it’s always a bit of a lottery,” said Philippe. “Either it works, or it doesn’t. On top of that, Romain still bears some scars from his crash. We know he doesn’t make excuses, but I think it still had a small impact. Anyway, we rode the race we needed to, the riders were there in the right place at the right time, and then it came down to legs. It’s such a demanding race, if you’re lacking a little something, you’re not with the best. When it’s like this, you can’t really have regrets. We are where we belong given the circumstances of the day and the approach we had to this race.”
