The WorldTour calendar restarted on Saturday with the Clasica San Sebastian. One day after having completed the Vuelta a Burgos, not far from there, Rémy Rochas took a decent result in the Basque city. The French climber couldn’t contest the victory, but he fought until the end to take twentieth place, his best result in a one-day race of this level.
The only Spanish WorldTour classic was on the menu this Saturday. In the Clasica San Sebastian, 236-kilometres long and featuring 4,400 metres of elevation gain, Groupama-FDJ lined up a very similar group to the one present on the Vuelta a Burgos all week. Indeed, only Matt Walls was replaced by Lenny Martinez, and the race started at full speed as it took almost an hour for the day’s breakaway to establish itself. Ten men eventually made it to the front, namely Warren Barguil (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Simon Carr (EF Education-EasyPost), Davide De Pretto (Jayco AlUla), Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Lidl-Trek), Thibault Guernalec (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Jesús Herrada (Cofidis), Ådne Holter (Uno-X Mobility), Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies), Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto Dstny) and Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe). The peloton gave them a lead of up to four and a half minutes, and Simon Carr was able to come over the famous Jaikzibel climb in the lead. “A first selection”, according to Philippe Mauduit, took place at this point in the pack, but it was on the Erlaitz climb (3.8 km at 10.7%) that things got really lively, with more than forty kilometres to go.
“He wasn’t that far to do much better”, Philippe Mauduit
Julian Alaphilippe started the attacks, and Rémy Rochas tried to join in the fight. “There was a big acceleration, the best moved away towards the front, then a group of about fifteen was formed after a few attacks”, Philippe Mauduit explained. “Rémy was not far at the top. He is surely the last one not to come back to the front group”. From then on, the Groupama-FDJ climber entered a second chasing group, more than a minute behind the favourites who fought on the final climb of Pilotegi (2km at 11%), located ten kilometres from the line. Still, Rémy Rochas also wanted to be aggressive in the chasing group. “He attacked at the bottom of the last climb,” Philippe explained. “The group he was in split apart and he finished all alone in front of the rest of this small peloton. He fought well to get twentieth place, which is all to his credit. He wasn’t that far to do much better in terms of results, but he finished his preparation week for the Vuelta quite well.” Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) took victory ahead of Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step).
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