The terrain got hard this Friday on the Tour of Slovenia. On a hilly third stage, the Groupama-FDJ cycling team tried to be aggressive with its young riders. Maxime Decomble and Enzo Paleni then hit the front one after the other towards Nova Gorica. The breakaway, however, did not make it to the end, then Brieuc Rolland tested himself in the final and got 37th place. Saturday, a summit finish is on the menu.
Unfortunately, the Groupama-FDJ squad took the start of stage 3 of the Tour of Slovenia, on Friday, without Paul Penhoët, suffering from the wrist after his crash in the sprint the day before. “We were actually very much looking forward to seeing Paul race today,” said William Green. “It was a difficult stage, he probably wouldn’t have made it to the front, but it would have been a good test before the French championship”. It therefore didn’t happen. Also, before the last seventy kilometres, always up and down, the riders experienced an intense start to the stage, during which eight men first managed to take the lead. The peloton, however, remained very close to compete for the first intermediate sprint, located after sixty kilometres. “The plan today was to be represented in the breakaway,” explained William. “We were really active early on, but it didn’t really go before the first bonus sprint. Then, there was a lot of attacking, we were really offensive, and Maxime went clear in a small breakaway with three other riders.”
“A good first effort for Brieuc”, William Green
The quartet took the lead for some time but was caught on the first ascent of Ravnica (5.8 km at 6%), more than sixty kilometres from the finish. “Enzo immediately counterattacked with a rider from UAE Team Emirates,” William added. “The timing was very good. Ten runners came across, and all of a sudden, we had twenty riders in that group. It was a very strong one, but Bahrain-Victorious and Jayco-AlUla didn’t have many numbers. So they controlled with hard tempo, and Enzo was caught.” With about 35 kilometres to go, the Frenchman was reeled in like most of the men from the leading group, then the bunch remained quite big until the bottom of the second climb to Ravnica, located fifteen kilometres from the finish line. “We then gave full focus to Brieuc, for whom it was the first opportunity to climb at this level,” added William. “He rode an ok climb, there is still some learning to come for him, but it was a good first effort.”
Although he was unable to hold on to the first two groups, the 20-year-old Frenchman fought until the end and took 37th place, 2’52 behind the winner and new yellow jersey Giovanni Aleotti. “We’ll see what he can do tomorrow and try to search for some improvement,” William said. “It will be a very difficult step. It’s shorter but there’s a big final climb and a hard climb just seven kilometres into the race.”
