For its first race on the French amateur calendar in a while, “La Conti” Groupama-FDJ was caught off guard on Sunday during Annemasse-Bellegarde et retour. After missing the early breakaway, the French development squad was forced to chase for much of the day, and Maxime Decomble eventually secured sixth place after anticipating the final sprint.
The young men of “La Conti” were therefore back among the amateurs this Sunday, for a high-level Elite event with a nice prize list. On the 165-kilometre route of Annemasse-Bellegarde et retour, several climbs punctuated the course, but the task proved tricky even before the hills for Joseph Berlin-Sémon and Jérôme Gannat’s men. “It went fast from the start, with a breakaway group of 6-7 riders, in which we weren’t represented, then a counter-attack group of about ten riders, in which we weren’t represented either,” Joseph said. “There were almost all the big teams except Bourg-en-Bresse and us. So we had to take things in hand pretty early. The guys rode, reduced the gap, and then we went through the day’s various climbs, with the gap stabilizing at 40-50 seconds. We really started the race the wrong way, and that’s probably what we missed in the final part because we had to sacrifice a few riders to get the job done.”
“Perhaps they didn’t dare enough”, Joseph Berlin-Sémon
Reef Roberts still managed to break away from the peloton on the third KOM of the day. “He was very strong,” Joseph said. “He was very aggressive, he tried to attack several times, and that allowed him to get back to the front of the race in a small chasing group. So we had Reef at the front in a breakaway of fifteen riders for the last seventy kilometres, which was pretty good. However, with the race difficulty and all the bullets he had spent beforehand, he wasn’t able to keep up with the others on Chez Padon, the fourth climb.” With about thirty kilometres to go, the situation changed again before heading towards Annemasse. “It was a pretty open race in the final,” Joseph added. “It was even difficult for us to follow what was going on. After Chez Padon, we only had Maxime left in the peloton. This group managed to catch the two leaders in the final kilometre to battle for victory. Maxime played his cards right, attacking with 400 metres to go. It was the best thing to do for him, as sprinting isn’t his strength. He was only caught by five guys in the sprint, which was pretty satisfying”.
Maxime Decomble therefore took sixth place on the line, while Baptiste Grégoire, Reef Roberts, Rémi Daumas, and Max Bock finished a minute behind the first peloton, which was made of 28 riders. “This is the first time I’ve seen this race finish with such a large group,” said Joseph. “The race’s scenario was special. The biggest disappointment for us is that we missed the early moves, as it meant we were a step behind the whole day. As I told them in the briefing, it’s certainly only an amateur race, but the level is very high. It’s still a great learning race and it also shows the work that still needs to be done to be at the required level. When they had to chase, they went for it, they were together, but perhaps they didn’t dare enough to follow the moves at the start. We need to be more aggressive, more offensive and be more vigilant about what’s happening in the race.”