Despite some climbs on the menu, stage 3 of the Tour of the Basque Country did not prove selective on Wednesday towards Altsasu, where an almost complete bunch finished in the sprint. Romain Grégoire joined the final fight in a slight uphill road to claim seventh place. He remains thirteenth overall, but some changes should occur on Thursday in Legutio.
On Wednesday morning, Groupama-FDJ took the start of the Tour of the Basque Country’s stage 3 with only six riders. Due to a hand injury, David Gaudu was indeed unable to resume racing. “It can be cruel, but it’s part of cycling,” said Benoît Vaugrenard. “You then see the strength of a team when it can move forward, bounce back, and remotivate. Even if we think a lot about David, we wanted to get back to it and aim for a stage result with Romain and the team.” In the first hour of racing, Reuben Thompson and Rémy Rochas even showed up on the attack to try to slip into the breakaway. “We wanted to be aggressive, but the peloton didn’t let it happen and only allowed four riders to go clear,” explained Benoît. After fifty kilometres, Alan Jousseaume, Tom Paquot and Antonio Eric Fagundez took the lead while James Fouché remained in-between for a long time before coming across. The peloton kept the day’s attackers within three minutes for most of the day before catching them with more than forty kilometres to go, following a strong push. A few moments later, however, it all eased up after the leader Primoz Roglic was involved in a crash. “It blocked the race a little,” said Benoît. “On the penultimate, quite steep climb, there could have been attacks. We could also feel that the peloton was nervous, but I feel that the crash calmed everyone down and it slowed down quite a bit.”
“That’s something anyway”, Romain Grégoire
The Slovenian rider came back at the bottom of the final climb, almost twenty-five kilometres from the finish, where the peloton almost lost no rider. “The headwind also blocked the race in the final,” said Benoît. After the intermediate sprint was contested between the GC favourites, the peloton headed towards the finish line for the final sprint. “We tried to get involved with Romain,” Benoît said. “We had to be positioned at 500 metres, and Romain was, but he was still a little too far back to be able to fight for the win.” The young Frenchman still made his way into the top-10 (7th) while victory went to Quinten Hermans. “The final was really nervous,” he said. “With the headwind, there were a lot of waves, and it was quite dangerous. The team protected me well all day and I managed to find a small space in the final to do the sprint. However, it mainly came down to positioning, and I didn’t have the legs to go higher than seventh place. It’s still a top-10 and that’s something anyway. We can now focus on the next three days which will be the hardest.” “The guys were in the mix and worked well, that’s the most important,” Benoît concluded. “We are motivated to get a result by the end of the week. Tomorrow, it will be a bit harder, there will be fewer riders in the final, which may suit Romain. It will be up to us to race smart.”
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