The Renewi Tour got off to a flying start this Wednesday in the Netherlands. Despite a first stage made for the sprinters, the race proved quite intense in the second half after the formation of a large and strong breakaway. Thanks, in particular, to the work of the Groupama-FDJ cycling team, it all came back together towards the finish, but Paul Penhoët was unable to find his way through in the final sprint (20th). The young Frenchman will have another opportunity on Thursday.
Not far from Belgium, southeast of the Netherlands, the Renewi Tour peloton faced a very flat course on Wednesday for the first stage. The day’s insignificant elevation gain suggested nothing other than a bunch sprint in Breskens, after 182 kilometres, and the day began in a very usual way with the formation of an unthreatening, seven-man breakaway. Their lead never exceeded two minutes, but as the halfway point approached, everything changed. “About 100 kilometres from the finish, fourteen riders broke away, and that was much more serious,” said Thierry Bricaud. “It was tense, there was a split, but it wasn’t really about echelons. It was more of a race circumstance. In any case, we weren’t represented in that breakaway, like other teams, and from then on, it was a long chase to try and catch the leading group. There were also some minor echelons that disrupted the peloton’s chase, and the gap always fluctuated between thirty seconds and one minute.”
“The door closed in front of Paul every time,” Thierry Bricaud
The battle seemed to turn in the peloton’s favor when, forty-five kilometers from the finish, the gap was reduced to barely twenty seconds. “Valentin pulled first, so as not to get caught in the echelons, and Johan rode afterward as well,” Thierry added. The work of the French team and a few other squads allowed the bunch to keep the gap under thirty seconds in the final hour of racing. Despite the constant pressure, everything seemed to be leading to a sprint. “However, with ten kilometers to go, the peloton eased off, it got very tricky, and we put more guys to work because we had no choice,” Thierry emphasized. “We had to give Paul a chance to sprint and not jeopardize our chances for the general classification. We had to bridge across, no matter what. Clément [Russo] was forced to ride while he shouldn’t have done so that early, but if he hadn’t, I’m not sure the peloton would have come back.” Thanks to this effort, everything came back together five kilometres from the finish, after almost two hours of fighting.
The final then turned out to be extremely hectic. “Paul was therefore a bit isolated,” Thierry concluded. “He looked for a gap but never found it; the door closed in front of him every time, and he couldn’t make his sprint. There’s no convincing result today, but we’re still in the running for the rest of the race, that’s the most important thing. Tomorrow, we’ll probably have another bunch finish if the wind isn’t that strong, and we’ll try to pull off the great sprint we weren’t able to pull off today.”
