Two weeks after his double victory at the Étoile de Bessèges, Ewen Costiou made another strong impression this Sunday at the Tour of the Alpes-Maritimes. In a difficult race marked by attacks from far out, the young Breton managed for a bit to stay on the wheels of the top climbers before eventually dropping back into a chasing group. Then, on the uphill finish in Biot, he gave everything to secure a solid sixth place.
A challenging playground awaited the peloton this Sunday, with nearly 3,000 meters of climbing in the hills behind Nice. Right from the start in Villefranche-sur-Mer, the Col d’Èze loomed ahead. “Some riders were told to try and go for the breakaway,” explained Benoît Vaugrenard. “Nine men eventually went away, without any dangerous teams, but that didn’t really suit us since we had no one up front. We tried to open up the race again in the col de Châteauneuf after about forty kilometres. With the team we had, it would have been a shame not to have someone at the front. Guillaume went off alone, then joined the leading group with a rider from Astana. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right move, because Bahrain Victorious immediately started chasing, and everything was brought back together.” After about thirty minutes in the lead, the French climber saw the peloton close the gap with roughly 75 kilometres left to go, and a more conventional scenario unfolded up to the long ascent to Gourdon (12 km at 4.5%), where the first kilometres of climbing were the hardest ones.
“The result is mixed”, Benoît Vaugrenard
This is also where the race truly split apart. “The favorites went with Lenny [Martinez], Marco Brenner, Aurélien Paret-Peintre, and Ewen,” Benoît recounted. “It was really well done from Ewen, who had to follow Lenny. They managed to get through the toughest section, but unfortunately Lenny kept launching repeated accelerations, and Ewen and Paret-Peintre were dropped. That probably wasn’t the best move, as they likely had a better chance going all the way in a group of four rather than two.” On the following descent, the Groupama-FDJ United rider was caught by a chasing group of about ten riders. “I’m sure Guillaume belonged in that group; he was very close to making it at the top,” said Benoît. “He showed good form today, but it’s a shame, because we shouldn’t have sent him up in Châteauneuf. That said, it’s always easier to say in hindsight. As a result, Ewen was isolated, which is the negative point of the day. At least, he didn’t have to pull. Behind, we tried to organize the chase in a third group with Tom, Rudy, Quentin, and Brieuc, but we were too far back.”
In the final demanding 25 kilometers to Biot, the teams with multiple riders in the chasing group took responsibility, reducing the gap to about fifteen seconds at the bottom of the final climb (1.5 km at 5.5%) on Martinez and Brenner. “Then it just came down to the legs, and Ewen had already spent a lot of energy,” added Benoît. While the Breton couldn’t join the fight for victory, he nonetheless dug deep a bit behind to take sixth place on the finish line, nine seconds behind Paul Lapeira. “The result is mixed because we’re not here to finish sixth, but the race doesn’t lie, and we were a bit short physically,” concluded Benoît. “We’ll need to step it up for next weekend, which will be very important, whether it’s in Belgium or at the Drôme-Ardèche races.”
