After getting unlucky weather during the team time trial, David Gaudu and his teammates hoped to move forward on Wednesday in stage 4 of Paris-Nice. Unfortunately, they weren’t much luckier towards Mont Brouilly. Right in the mix until the penultimate climb, the French leader was unfortunately left behind after crashing while removing his jacket. He then never managed to return and lost almost six minutes at the finish. The GC is now out of reach and the team will approach the rest of the week with new goals.
Although the general classification started to establish on the team time trial, the first head-to-head fight between the contenders was planned this Wednesday on the 2024 “Race to the Sun”. The menu was quite demanding: seven classified climbs, including Mont Brouilly (3 km at 7.7%) twice, with a route featuring almost no flat metre. The last hundred kilometres were just made of ups and downs. Four riders were in the lead entering this second part of the race: Jasper De Buyst, Stefan Bissegger, Cristian Scaroni and Mathieu Burgaudeau. Then, climbs after climbs, the selection started to take place from the back of the bunch, led by the teammates of the yellow jersey Brandon McNulty. With about fifty kilometres to go, David Gaudu still had most of his teammates by his side, at the head of the pack. Right after, the riders tackled the first ascent of Mont Brouilly, which only sixty riders or so survived behind the last man from the break, Cristian Scaroni. In the meantime, the Groupama-FDJ leader could still rely on Kevin Geniets, Quentin Pacher but also the green jersey Laurence Pithie.
“I made a big mistake”, David Gaudu
Shortly after passing the finish for the first time, the New Zealander also went to get four points at the intermediate sprint to strengthen his lead on the points classification. The peloton then headed towards the penultimate climb of the day, the Col du Fût d’Avenas-Les Chappes (5 Km at 7%), where David Gaudu seemed to be in control for a long time in the first ten positions. Unfortunately, while Santiago Buitrago and Luke Plapp went on the attack, the French climber was stopped by a crash, a bit more than a kilometre from the summit, and twenty-three from the finish. “I made a rookie mistake, a teenager mistake even,” said David. “I took off my jacket, and when I wanted to throw it to an assistant on the side of the road, it got caught in my handlebars. I made a big mistake. I found myself on the ground, and a bit stunned at the time because another rider fell on me.” The Groupama-FDJ leader stood up as quickly as he could, and got going again with Quentin Pacher, still up there at this point of the race. “Everything was going well until this crash,” said Benoît Vaugrenard. “Then, it didn’t calm down because two riders had already gone away. We should have bridged across on the hardest part, but it was going too fast in front and Quentin was the only one pulling.” “Quentin tried to bring me back, but it was quite difficult because the peloton was also pulling downhill,” added David.
“Laurence really has the ability to win a stage”, Benoît Vaugrenard
This is how, in just a few kilometres, David Gaudu lost almost a minute from the other GC contenders. Without hope of making it back in the final climb of Mont Brouilly, the Breton did not push and crossed the finish line six minutes after the winner. “We’re very disappointed,” said Benoît. “Besides, he was feeling pretty good today. We hope that the wheel of fortune will turn in the next few days because we have been unlucky for two days now.” The only day’s satisfaction came from Laurence Pithie retaining the green jersey. He now has an eight-point lead over Mads Pedersen. “He’s going very well, we saw it again today,” Benoît added. “The next two days can suit him. I think he really has the ability to win a stage and we will do everything we can to help him do so. We also hope that the weekend’s stages will not be chopped off. David is now far in the overall, and if he recovers well, he can do something”. “Tomorrow, I will try to spend the calmest day possible,” concluded David. “The team will protect Laurence, then from Friday we will need to get going to try to win a stage.”
No comment