After an un-rewarded performance on Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne, Laurence Pithie managed to come away with a result on Le Samyn this Tuesday. Active and attentive in the last hour of racing, the young New Zealander, riding for “La Conti” for the occasion, took eighth place in a sprint from a reduced peloton. His next race: Paris-Nice, starting on Sunday.
After the opening in Flanders, the opening in Wallonia! Three days after the start of the Classics campaign on Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Le Samyn served as the first race of the year in the other part of Belgium this Tuesday. For the occasion, the “La Conti” Groupama-FDJ and not the WorldTour team was at the start, despite Laurence Pithie and Matt Walls lining up alongside their young teammates. The riders then had to tackle a few cobbled sectors and a handful of hills between Quaregnon and Dour on the traditional route: a 90-kilometre first section, then a circuit of 26 kilometres, including all the obstacles, to be done four times. The first half of the race allowed a breakaway of five men to escape and get a maximum lead of three minutes: Martijn Budding, Stijn Daemen, Enrico Dhaeye, Kévin Avoine and Miguel Ángel Fernández. However, the peloton became more nervous from the very first lap of the circuit, and the first counterattacks occurred. At the same time, Laurence Pithie experienced some setbacks. “I had a mechanical problem after the first cobbled sector, it took me quite a long time to come back, and I used some energy there,” he confided. “When I was coming back, I also had to avoid all the crashes, but the guys did a very good job. They waited for me and helped me move up. It was a really crazy race.” “The work started early for our youngsters,” confirmed Frédéric Guesdon. “There were quite a few splits in the first lap, so they waited for Laurence and put him back in the race.”
“I couldn’t move up and open my sprint”, Laurence Pithie
Once back in the peloton, the “Kiwi” tried to ride cautiously while the bunch gradually reduced. Less than sixty kilometres from the finish, the morning breakaway was caught, and other attacks came. “It was a classic Belgian race, where you have to force yourself to ride in front,” added Frédéric. “There were accelerations, but the elimination was mainly done from the back. There wasn’t too much wind, and the weather was quite good, which can also explain the scenario. On the penultimate lap, we still had four guys in the first peloton, but Jens [Verbrugghe] crashed first, then Titouan [Fontaine] also with twenty kilometres to go. In the last lap, there was only Noah left with Laurence, but he was starting to struggle. Laurence therefore found himself on his own in the final, but he knows how to handle it and we weren’t too worried.” In a peloton reduced to around thirty riders, the leader of “La Conti” managed to find his way through and even briefly accelerated eleven kilometres from the finish, following a cobbled sector. “I managed to have good positioning but there wasn’t much movement in the end of the race,” said Laurence. “It was quite controlled for the sprint.” Still in a good position in the day’s last two tricky sections, then also at the start of the slightly uphill road to the finish, the New Zealander was only trapped as the sprint set up. “I got boxed back with about two kilometres to go, I couldn’t move up and open my sprint,” he added. “That’s racing.”
“The young riders did not disappoint”, Frédéric Guesdon
Too far from the head of the peloton to hope for victory, Laurence Pithie still fought to the end to take eighth place. “It’s not too bad, but it could be better,” he said. “It’s a shame because when you look at his sprint, he’s far but doesn’t go backwards,” added Frédéric. “On the contrary, he was going back up. With better positioning, it was possible to do a bit better. Physically, he was capable of it. Anyway, this is promising for the future. It was only his second race in Europe. He was in the front on Sunday, he is eighth today, and perhaps had not fully recovered from his efforts on Kuurne. This bodes well for Paris-Nice.” On Tuesday, the winner of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race also scored his tenth top-10 of the season. As for his young teammates, they suffered but also learned in Wallonia. “It was very interesting because we had a clear goal supporting Laurence,” concluded Frédéric. “It’s a race where they learned to ride for a leader, especially here where it’s important to stay in position. When we left, they were happy, and they wanted to come back. They weren’t discouraged by the race scenario, the crashes, the speed and the tension. They did not disappoint. I was even surprised by some, including Titouan who had never done a race that long. It’s good for the future.”