The Groupama-FDJ cycling team was keen to launch the Tour du Limousin in a good way on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the race circumstances led to a day “to forget” for Benoît Vaugrenard’s men on stage 1. After missing the decisive move, the French squad also saw two of its riders crash in the final, including Quentin Pacher who had to abandon. Thanks to a bonus second taken along the way, Tom Donnenwirth is 9th on GC.
From Panazol to La Courtine, the peloton was back on the undulating roads of the Tour du Limousin – Périgord – Nouvelle Aquitaine on Tuesday, with a first stage that didn’t include major climbs, but still featured 3000 metres of elevation gain. A challenging day was therefore looming throughout the 184 kilometres on the menu, and right from the start, a group of seven riders went clear to form the breakaway. The lead of the fugitives topped five minutes, then logically reduced around mid-race, and it was even brought back under the one-minute mark with more than seventy kilometres to go. The pack therefore eased off a little, before resuming the chase in the first of the three classified climbs. In the second one, the Côte d’Abbas-Féniers, located about thirty-five kilometres from the finish, the first attacks occurred, and Groupama-FDJ also tried a move as the summit approached, with Olivier Le Gac and Lorenzo Germani. “Lorenzo tried, but it didn’t work,” said Benoît Vaugrenard. “The slope was not hard enough. “ Right after, Rémy Rochas tried to get away within a trio, but only Urko Berrade was able to keep a small margin on the peloton for the intermediate sprint, where Tom Donnenwirth snatched third place and one bonus second.
“A day to forget”, Benoît Vaugrenard
Subsequently, things took a wrong turn for Groupama-FDJ. “We wanted to keep Tom for the sprint, but the goal was also to follow the moves with Rémy, Quentin and Lorenzo,” said Benoît. “In particular, we had to keep an eye on Decathlon-AG2R and TotalEnergies. Rémy’s move was good, but we got counterattacked then. When the group of seven went out, we weren’t in it. We didn’t ride quite right. We found ourselves one step behind, we tried to rectify, but it turned out to be very hard, especially since we lost two riders because of crashes. It also penalized us a lot.” Thirty kilometres from the finish, a solid group went away and quickly took fifteen seconds of a lead. Lorenzo Germani crashed at this moment, but Olivier Le Gac and Rémy Rochas tried to keep the peloton in the mix until the last fifteen kilometres, before Quentin Pacher also crashed and was forced to abandon. Within the pack, other teams then took over, but two men managed to make it to the end, with Thomas Gachignard claiming victory. Thirteen seconds later, Tom Donnenwirth placed fifteenth in a bunch of about fifty riders also including Rémy Rochas and Olivier Le Gac. “It’s a day to forget,” said Benoît. “We will see how Lorenzo feels tomorrow morning, but Tom feels good, and there are still good finishes for him this week”.
