For the final Belgian race of the season, the Groupama-FDJ United cycling team produced a strong performance this Tuesday. Once again highly active, the French squad was involved in the various breakaways, with Axel Huens and Thibaud Gruel playing a prominent role over the final 70 kilometres of Binche-Chimay-Binche. The pair were still away with just five kilometres to go, before the peloton caught them at the very end Thibaud Gruel nevertheless had enough left in the tank to round off the day with a top-10 finish, taking seventh place.
The course laid out around Binche on Tuesday was nothing unfamiliar to the riders. The traditional, demanding circuit around the Belgian town was once again on the menu for this 39th edition, featuring the short but intense cobbled climb to the finish, followed by a long false flat of almost three kilometres designed to create some fatigue and encourage attacks. Despite all this, the sprinters remained the favourites on paper. “We didn’t have the fastest riders on the start line, so our idea was to anticipate the sprint and make sure we were well represented during the final hour and a half of racing, in order to make the race harder while keeping Clément in the back,” explained Frédéric Guesdon. “That’s exactly what we did.” With the morning breakaway already within striking distance with four laps to go, the real battle began, and Axel Huens was the first to truly get involved, joining a strong group of riders. That chasing group initially caught the breakaway, but was itself brought back by the peloton one lap later. Thibaud Gruel then tried to launch another move, but it was a subsequent attack that managed to get clear for a few minutes. “We were caught out once, but things quickly got back under control,” Frédéric pointed out. “We knew it would be difficult for us to close gaps, so the idea was always to have a rider up the road. Axel and Thibaud managed to do that, also thanks to the help of their teammates. Whenever there was a serious move, we were there.”
“We came within a whisker of achieving our goal” – Frédéric Guesdon
With 30 kilometres remaining, the peloton eventually came back together. Although it was repeatedly disrupted by a succession of attacks, the bunch remained intact until the start of the final of the five laps around Binche, 16 kilometres from the finish. Shortly after crossing the finish line for the penultimate time, however, the attacks resumed with even greater intensity. Thibaud Gruel was quick to react when several strong riders broke clear on the false flat. A few kilometres later, Axel Huens joined his teammate thanks to a counter-attack, and the two riders became part of a very strong ten-man breakaway in the closing stages of the race. “It was almost perfect,” said Frédéric Guesdon. “Unfortunately, they weren’t able to build much of a gap over the peloton, partly because some riders in the group weren’t doing much work. The cooperation wasn’t optimal.” Their advantage still came close to 20 seconds with five kilometres remaining. But with two kilometres to go, the breakaway was caught, setting up a special sprint over the final 500 metres of cobbles at 4%. “They were caught just before the foot of the climb, but Thibaud managed to catch his breath and stay well positioned,” Frédéric added. “Unfortunately, he got boxed in a little, Brennan made the split on the first three riders, and he wasn’t able to fight for the top places.”
The Frenchman was nevertheless able to cap a strong day with seventh place at the finish. “It shows that he’s in good form,” Frédéric insisted. “Obviously, we were aiming for more, but we wanted to race aggressively and we came within a whisker of achieving our goal. I don’t think we can have any regrets. It’s better to try than to simply wait for the sprint. It will pay off eventually. Fortunately, we still have a result to show for it today, because the team has been very aggressive for some time now without always getting the results it deserves. By being involved in the action once again, we still managed to put two riders in the top 12 (Clément Russo 12th, ed.). At least that’s a small reward for the guys’ efforts today.”
