As usual, a bunch sprint concluded the Grand Prix de Fourmies on Sunday. But as usual, an extremely tense final led to the expected fight between the fast men. Blocked several times in the final kilometre, Paul Penhoët was unable to find his way through to the front and had to settle for thirteenth place.
Despite a far from ridiculous elevation gain (2,000 metres), the sprinters were surely on their terrain this Sunday in the North of France, in Fourmies. In the eponymous Grand Prix, victory always went to a fast man since 2012, and this streak had every reason to continue in the 92nd edition. Even more so when the day’s breakaway developed with just five riders, whom the peloton easily controlled. Entering the finishing circuit in Fourmies, 10.5 kilometres long and to be covered six times, the fugitives only had a two-minute lead. “Once on the circuit, the rain made things a bit nervous,” explained Stéphane Goubert. “The last hour of racing was still a bit stressful, and there were a few crashes, which we managed to avoid.” Entering the final lap, three survivors of the early breakaway still had a twenty-second advantage, but the last of them was caught three kilometres from the finish line. Two riders tried to escape from the bunch right away, quite unsuccessfully, and the sprint then unfolded in a rather chaotic way.
“We have to move forward,” Stéphane Goubert
“The sprint is very unique in Fourmies, with a downhill approach,” explained Stéphane. “In the final, the team split in two and they lost each other. The guys wanted to make an effort to stretch out the peloton and make the sprint smoother, but Paul paid a bit for that as he found himself a bit isolated.” The French sprinter was still able to come back near the front of the pack with about 600 metres to go but was subsequently boxed in or blocked several times. “When you’re not at the very front, it’s very difficult to find a gap,” added Stéphane. “We weren’t up there, and that’s why Paul wasn’t able to do the sprint we and he wanted.” Although he managed to find some space about 100 metres from the finish line, Paul Penhoët started from too far back to take better than thirteenth place. “We’re disappointed because we came here aiming for something good,” concluded Stéphane. “We wanted to do things better than that. It didn’t work out, but that’s how it is. We have to move forward, make a good debriefing, and possibly do things differently next time. A sprint is always a bit uncertain, but that’s even more the case at Fourmies.”
