At the top of the famous Côte de Cadoudal, the Groupama-FDJ cycling team tried to maintain its nice momentum this Saturday on the Grand Prix du Morbihan. However, the final few hundred meters were too much for Benoît Vaugrenard’s riders, and Brieuc Rolland and Tom Donnenwirth could only get fifteenth and sixteenth places at the finish line. On Sunday, the Tro Bro Léon will conclude this sequence of races in Brittany.
One hundred and ninety kilometres and no less than thirteen ascents of the Côte de Cadoudal. This was the day’s schedule for the Grand Prix du Morbihan. And after a three-rider breakaway managed to go clear early on, the day’s scenario seemed rather straightforward. “The plan was quite simple,” confirmed Benoît Vaugrenard. “We know that it almost always comes down to an uphill sprint here, and we had two leaders, Thibaud and Rudy. The goal was to support them, be in a good position, and not make any mistakes in the last kilometre.” Before that last kilometre, the race didn’t prove very eventful, despite being tiring. The peloton gradually closed the gap on the breakaway, which was caught three laps from the finish, then a few attacks occurred but didn’t have any consequences. Therefore, quite a big pack then tackled the final nine-kilometre loop around Plumelec. “We had several punchers in the team, and the goal was to go with the freshest card at the end,” added Tom Donnenwirth. “Thibaud felt good, we tried to gather in the final, but with the fast descent five kilometres from the finish, we weren’t able to find each other. Thibaud had to use a bullet to get back to the front of the peloton, and he probably paid for it a bit at the end.”
“I believed in it,” Tom Donnenwirth
Despite a hard pace from the bottom of the Cadoudal hill (2 km at 5.5%), Tom Donnenwirth and Thibaud Gruel managed to stay in the front line, in the wake of Clément Braz Afonso. With 500 metres to go, Tom Donnenwirth even followed an acceleration and stayed in the very first positions from then on. “I was well placed thanks in particular to Clément’s good work,” confirmed Tom. “I even believed in it, because I took the last corner in fifth or sixth position with 150 metres to go, but I didn’t have the champions’ double-kick to finish it off”. “We simply didn’t have the legs in the final sprint,” added Benoît. “In a finish like this, there are no excuses.” We were up there, but we didn’t have what it took to do better.” Ultimately, the last hundred metres cost the Groupama-FDJ’s men dearly, as Tom Donnenwirth dropped back to sixteenth position while Brieuc Rolland came from behind to grab fifteenth place, several bike lengths behind the winner Benoît Cosnefroy. “We’ll do everything we can to make up for it tomorrow,” promised Benoît Vaugrenard. On to the dirty roads of the Tro Bro Léon!
