In the ancient and gorgeous city of Matera, Groupama-FDJ secured their first top-10 result in the 2025 Giro d’Italia on Wednesday. After a punchy final, Quentin Pacher managed to join the sprint, thanks to a superb positioning before the final straight. The Frenchman took seventh place, a few bike lengths behind the pink jersey Mads Pedersen, while David Gaudu, Kevin Geniets, and Rémy Rochas also finished the stage in the peloton.
A rather short day was looming for the Giro riders this Wednesday, as they headed from Puglia to Basilicata. Barely more than 150 kilometres made up the fifth stage, with Matera as its destination, with a spicy final on a slightly bumpy terrain. At first, three Italian riders led the race, and the first two-thirds of the course were covered at a rather moderate pace. It was only as the peloton entered the last fifty kilometres that the pace increased, as did the concentration within the pack. The Groupama-FDJ cycling team then gathered around its leader. “David didn’t feel that good today, but the team was very united,” emphasized Stéphane Goubert. “It was a hard final, it went fast already on the categorized climb with some steep gradients, thirty kilometres from the finish. The team managed it really well around David to make sure he’d finish within the bunch, which was the main objective.” The French climber indeed completed the uphill sections of the final ten kilometres alongside Kevin Geniets, Rémy Rochas, and Quentin Pacher.
“It’s a good starting point,” Quentin Pacher
With three kilometers to go, a final 700-meter hill averaging 6% led to another selection. Primoz Roglic made a small push, but the Groupama-FDJ quartet was still up there at the top, before heading to a reduced bunch sprint. “Once the first goal was achieved, Quentin had the chance to go for the sprint if he could,” added Stéphane. The experienced 33-year-old puncher didn’t fail to seize this opportunity. “I was well positioned in the last corner, but I had already used all my energy to take Mads Pedersen’s wheel,” he explained. “Then, I was a bit cooked in the final stretch.” From third place, the Frenchman slipped back a little, but he still managed to secure a solid seventh place on the finish line. “It was nice to be in the final and feel the adrenaline that goes with it,” he said. “Now we have to do a little better, but it’s a good starting point.” “It’s a very good result,” Stéphane said. “He’s obviously disappointed, because when you’re seventh, you want to be in the top-5. But if he had finished fifth, he would have wanted to be on the podium. Above all, we have to underline the team’s work today. The boys thought about the team first, and that really gives us a smile tonight”.Kevin Geniets also finished fourteenth on the stage, while David Gaudu remains in 23rd position overall. On Thursday, the riders will set off on the longest stage of the Giro, with 227 kilometres to Naples. “The weather should be better than forecast in recent days,” Stéphane concluded. “We hope that this stage will help us get even better, because we will then very quickly get into the thick of things, with a summit finish, a breakaway day and then the Strade Bianche.”
