As in 2022 and 2023, Lewis Askey fought up front on Saturday in the Classic Loire-Atlantique. Along with his young teammate Thibaud Gruel, the British rider first created the decisive breakaway in the last third of the race around La Haie-Fouassière. However, he came against a team with more numbers in the final and then had to settle for eighth place. The Groupama-FDJ cycling team will try to take revenge on Sunday at Cholet-Pays de Loire.
The usual La Haie-Fouassière circuit was once again set to welcome the peloton on Saturday for the 25th Classic Loire-Atlantique, also the third round of the Coupe de France FDJ. A challenging terrain was then on the menu for a very rejuvenated Groupama-FDJ cycling team, due to the support of Joshua Golliker, Noah Hobbs, and Brieuc Rolland coming from “La Conti”, in addition to Thibaud Gruel, recently promoted to the WorldTour team. “Luckily we have our La Conti’s young boys, because we have a lot of injured riders,” said Philippe Mauduit first. “Paul, Kono, Rudy, Marc, Kevin, Lars and David are out at the moment. This is an opportunity to greet them and remind them how much we miss them. While waiting for their return, we are doing our best.” Despite the context, the team remained very ambitious this Saturday. “We especially had a good card with Lewis to try to anticipate, then we had Noah and Matt in the event of a sprint finish,” explained Philippe. After one lap of the circuit, a breakaway first established itself with Jérémy Cabot, Thomas Boudat, Emil Schandorff Iwersen, Alex Raimondi, Gwen Leclainche and Clément Braz Afonso. Their maximum lead came close to four minutes, but the bunch then really got going, especially thanks to Groupama-FDJ.
“We missed a little something in the final”, Philippe Mauduit
“We wanted to avoid a bunch sprint for Lewis,” added Philippe. “So we did what was necessary to start a whole new race, get back on the breakaway and launch new attacks.” “I saw that Decathlon-AG2R was trying to do the easiest possible race to bring Sam Bennett for the sprint, so I said on the radio that we had to make it hard with four laps to go,” said Lewis. “That’s what we did. Thibaud did a great job, we attacked together, and we went away in a 12-man group.” More than fifty kilometres from the finish, meaning a little more than three laps to go, a new racing situation set in, and the leading group quickly gained a thirty-second lead over the bunch. The collaboration remained decent for some time, then the gap started to decrease in the penultimate lap. “Unfortunately for us, there were three Decathlon-AG2R riders with us,” said Philippe. “Lapeira attacked twenty kilometres from the finish, and everyone looked at us. Thibaud tried to work behind, but it was a bit complicated.” “That’s when we lost the race,” added Lewis. “Decathlon-AG2R had more numbers, they attacked one after the other, then when Lapeira went away, there were still two of them to break the pace. In the last lap, I went full gas. I came back just five seconds behind Lapeira on the penultimate climb, but I got stuck a bit at the top and couldn’t make the jump”.
The rest of the chasing group then got back on him, and the cooperation no longer existed. “The peloton came back fast at the end, and we were caught on the line,” said Lewis, who still managed to take 8th place. “It didn’t pay off, but it’s racing,” concluded Philippe. “The guys really did the race like we wanted to. We could have waited for the final sprint, but we decided to give ourselves the chance of winning and not just to make a place in the sprint. Regarding this, the riders did well. We missed a little something in the final, but they showed that they were capable of impacting the race, and that’s a good thing.” “I think we rode well,” Lewis said. “Personally, the legs were good. I dropped everyone on the last climb when I tried to jump across. I felt good, but it wasn’t my day. Tomorrow, in Cholet-Pays de Loire, I think it will be a bit similar. The race may be a little less hard, but it will be explosive at the end. We’ll try again. There’s probably a better chance of a sprint finish, and our two sprinters are in good shape. We keep our heads high.”
No comment