As in recent years, a tough sprint at the top of the Cadoudal climb concluded the Grand Prix du Morbihan on Saturday. Still in contention for victory in the last kilometre, Sam Watson only cracked in the last 300 metres and finally had to settle for seventeenth place, two ranks ahead of his young teammate Lewis Bower. The second round of the Breton weekend is now looming with the Tro Bro Leon on Sunday.
Across the 196 kilometres making up the route of the 2024 edition of the Grand Prix du Morbihan, the Cadoudal climb (1.7 km at 6.3%) featured no less than… fourteen times. After a short itinerary of fifty kilometres, the riders tackled a first circuit of thirteen kilometers, which had to be completed five times. Then, the final circuit of just eight kilometres was to be covered eight times. Yet, the outcome seemed clear for everyone. “It’s often the same thing in the Grand Prix du Morbihan,” explained Benoît Vaugrenard. “Despite climbs following up one another, it is often a reduced bunch sprint. Our goal was to bring Sam Watson in the best possible condition for the final because we know that he has the ability to play the leading roles in this type of finish. We wanted to protect him all day, especially since we only had six riders at the start. So that’s what we did”. At the front, Hugo Aznar (Equipo Kern Pharma), Iker Bonillo (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Romain Cardis (St Michel-Mavic-Auber93) and Negasi Haylu Abreha (Q36.5) led the way during most part of the day, notably in the rain, but the peloton came back quite early, with 55 kilometres to go.
“Sam did everything right”, Benoît Vaugrenard
From then on, the teams interested in victory tried to keep everything under control. “The race wasn’t that hard, apart from when Uno-X started to accelerate with two laps to go,” Benoît explained. On the final circuit, the few moves that occurred never succeeded, and the peloton remained quite big until the very last lap. As usual, a hill sprint then loomed, and Benoît Cosnefroy won it. “Sam was really in a good position, but his legs said no with 300m to go,” explained Benoît. “It’s a shame because he did everything right. He was also returning to racing; he had not raced since the Région Pays de la Loire Tour. It’s disappointing, but that’s racing. Lewis was also doing well. He is coming off the Tour de Bretagne, where he performed well. He shows that he has great potential, it’s promising. At the start, there were stronger contenders than us on this type of finish, we wanted to play with Sam, he just lacked a little something. Otherwise, there’s not much to complain about.” The Englishman took 17th place, the New Zealander 19th.
The latter will leave his spot to Ben Askey on Sunday, while Marc Sarreau will join the ranks of Groupama-FDJ on the Tro Bro Leon. “I think that with today’s race in their legs, they have the potential to get a good result and fight for victory tomorrow,” concluded Benoît.
No comment