Vachon wins stage 1 of Critérium International

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Florian Vachon (Bretagne – Schuller) claimed his second win of the season with victory on the opening stage of the Critérium International. The Frenchman held off Danilo Wyss (BMC Racing Team) and Clément Koretzky (La Pomme-Marseille) in Vecchio.

Heavy showers hit Corsica during the night, but by the time the riders showed up on the start line, the clouds had disappeared for stage 1 of the race: a 89.5km loop around Porto Vecchio.

After 7 kilometres on the road to the picturesque Palombaggia beach, three riders managed to break away: Julien Berard (Ag2r La Mondiale), David Le Lay (Saur-Sojasun) and 21-year-old Grégoire Tarride (La Pomme-Marseille), the youngest rider of the pack.

The front three saw their advantage grow from 40 seconds at km 16 to a maximum of 2 minutes at km 23. From then on, Team Sky took command of the chase and the gap dropped.

At the top of the côte de Conca (km 46) where Berard captured the mountain points ahead of Tarride and Le Lay, the pack remained 50 seconds adrift. After 53km, while his former breakaway companions were caught by the pack, Berard persisted on his own. He was eventually caught after 53km of racing.

A few moments later, 46 riders made the best of the narrow roads to power away. The pack therefore broke into two groups and the front men, who included Jens Voigt (RadioShack-Nissan), Cadel Evans (BMC) and Michael Rogers (Team Sky) were never caught. With 10 kilometres to go, they could enjoy a 35 second lead.

Victory was to be decided in a bunch sprint and after avoiding a crash in the field, Frenchman Florian Vachon was first over the line.

Results