The mountains of the Mercan’Tour Classic delivered their verdict on Monday, and Clément Braz Afonso made the most of his opportunity to take a solid top-10 finish (8th) in the Valberg resort, after more than 4,300 metres of climbing. After doing some great work beforehand, Tom Donnenwirth took fourteenth place, while Brieuc Rolland (18th) also made it into the day’s top-20.
Even though the Giro was on pause, there were indeed some mountains on the menu this Monday, as the fifth edition of the Mercan’Tour Classic was being held in the south of France. A winner last year, the Groupama-FDJ cycling team came this time with a very young squad, including three riders from “La Conti”, and even had the second lowest average age of all the teams lining up. Unlike the day’s menu, which was very dense due to the three major climbs (Colmiane, Couillole, Valberg), the day’s field was relatively small, and the scenario could therefore have proved unusual. ” Oscar [Nilsson-Julien] and Rémi [Daumas] were told to follow the important moves, but the breakaway only formed with two riders eventually,” explained Yvon Caër. “There was no particular danger, then we tried to approach the Colmiane in a good way for Clément [Braz Afonso], Brieuc [Rolland] and Tom [Donnenwirth] who were the riders we expected in the final. It went very well”. “On the Colmiane’s downhill, it went very, very fast, there were splits before reaching the bottom of the col de la Couillole, and the race was really on,” added Clément. “I was still there with Tom and Brieuc, but also Rémi, who held on for part of the climb.”
“It was a bit of a discovery”, Clément Braz Afonso
It was also on this col de la Couillole (16 km at 7%) that everything exploded with 46 kilometres to go when Cristian Rodriguez set off solo. “It was a hard attack, and I couldn’t go,” confessed Clément. “Brieuc was dropped five kilometres from the summit,” Yvon added. “It seems he’s still struggling when the climbs are longer than 8-9 kilometres, but he’s going to gain some strength, and that will improve.” Behind the Spanish leader, Groupama-FDJ initially took the pursuit in hand thanks to Tom Donnenwirth, in a group of about ten riders. “Tom put a lot of effort into limiting the gap at the top of Couillole, and he used a lot of energy for that,” said Yvon. “He was distanced towards the top, but he managed to get back in afterward to work for Clément again. He was maybe the one who had the best legs, but he committed to the team”. “Tom was very strong,” confirmed Clément. “He pulled for quite a bit in La Couillole, then we did a strong descent thanks to him to catch Herrada and Sosa. He had to let go at the bottom of the final climb but hats off to him because he was very solid. If he had saved a little more energy, I think he could have also achieved a great result.”
As the final climb to the Valberg resort (14 km at 6%) started, Cristian Rodriguez was already out of reach for the Clément Braz Afonso’ group, while two riders were still in-between. At the finish line, after around 4h30 of effort, the young man from Groupama-FDJ eventually secured eighth place. “I gave it my all on the last climb, but I was exhausted, like everyone else I think,” said Clément. “I couldn’t have done better today. Personally, I’m still pretty satisfied with my race because I don’t really know what my worth is on long climbs like today’s. It was a bit of a discovery. I came away from it with some positives, but there’s still work to do in order to do better” “There are no regrets,” concluded Yvon. “Clément was back after a short break, this is promising, and he will now head towards the Critérium du Dauphiné. He’s worked hard for the others since the beginning of the season, so it’s good that he had his chance and the opportunity to race for himself until the end. Overall, apart from Max [Bock] and Oscar who were caught in the splits quite early, they all wanted to finish, as you don’t often have the opportunity to compete in races with this type of elevation and long climbs.”
