Bouhanni wins stage 1 of Circuit de la Sarthe

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Nacer Bouhanni of FDJ.fr outsprinted Europcar's Bryan Coquard on the finish line of stage 1 of the Circuit de la Sarthe-Pays de la Loire in Saint-Géréon on Tuesday. The former French champion claimed a clear victory over Italy's Giacomo Nizzolo from Trek Factory Racing and Movistar's Juan José Lobato while Coquard closed in fourth.

"It's been a beautiful sprint," said Bouhanni, 23, who is taking part in his fourth straight Circuit de la Sarthe in as many years as a professional.

This time, though, was Bouhanni's first winning stage 1. He avoided all the hiccups of the bunch gallop by taking the reins early enough after the regrouping that followed the breakaway formed by Thomas Sprenger (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Duber Quintero (Team Colombia) and Marco Minnaard (Wanty-Groupe Gobert). The trio had ridden away in the first kilometer of racing and counted a maximum lead of seven minutes.

FDJ.fr was the main team chasing until Europcar took over on the finishing circuit with a very determined Thomas Voeckler showing his desire to make Coquard a winner in front of their home crowd in the Pays de la Loire region where the team is based.

"I'm disappointed," said Coquard after the finish. "My teammates did their best to lead me out and Thomas did most of the work. But it was a much troubled sprint in which my knee even hit the handlebar. Fortunately, there are other stages up for grabs and I'm not only a sprinter."

Bouhanni didn't realize any trouble as it happened behind him. "With two curves before the end, it was necessarily a bit dangerous but it went well," he said. "I positioned myself in third place with 350 metres to go, and I launched my sprint at 250m. With the tailwind, I preferred to start from far out in order to avoid taking any risk. I was supposed to follow my teammates Anthony Roux, Laurent Pichon and Sébastien Chavanel in that order, but I lost them all, and I had to make my moves by myself."

Bouhanni scored his fourth success this year after stages at the Etoile de Bessèges, Paris-Nice and Criterium International. "I'm quite happy with my results so far," he said. By now he has processed his disappointment at being left out of Milan-San Remo by his team, who has a long term and ambitious plan in the Classics with the other French sprinter of this generation, Arnaud Démare.

"My crash at Paris-Nice delayed my season's plan by two weeks, but now I don't feel the pain in my knee anymore," he said. "I'm also ambitious for stage 2 in Angers. I know that finale and I like it."

Stage 2 will precede the 6.8km individual time trial won by Luke Durbridge in the past two years. However, Orica-GreenEdge is not racing the Circuit de la Sarthe-Pays de la Loire this year due to a lack of communication with the race organizer.

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