Mourey triumphs in Namur World Cup

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In stormy weather conditions French champion Francis Mourey (FDJ.fr) powered in impressive style to his second ever World Cup victory at the similarly impressive citadel in Namur, Belgium. The 33 year-old Frenchman soloed away halfway through the race, winning with a respectable margin over Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb-Napoleon Games) and Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus).

Sven Nys (Crelan-KDL) waged an impressive comeback from a flat tire off the line to challenge for the podium, but a mistake in the off-camber section scuttled his chances. World Cup leader Lars van der Haar bounced back from a nasty crash halfway the race to strengthen his overall lead with a blistering fast final lap to take fifth. His closest rivals in the World Cup, Philipp Walsleben (BKCP-Powerplus) and Kevin Pauwels (Sunweb-Napoleon Games), disappointed with ninth and twelfth places, respectively.

In 2007 Mourey captured his first win in a World Cup round at the fast course in Treviso, Italy. The Frenchman failed to claim big wins ever since then, though he didn't regard this win extremely high. "It's not the most beautiful win of my career but since it's a World Cup round it is a nice race to win," Mourey told Sporza.

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"The physical course suits me a lot. I felt great and it helped me that I was more more fresh than the others." When asked which race was the most beautiful to win Mourey didn't look back but forward. "Winning the world championships in Hoogerheide. This win offers me some comfort. Things are going well and hopefully it remains like that until the world championships."

The win from Mourey was more than deserved, although some will argue that Nys was the strongest man in the race. Mourey might remind them about the extremely muddy 2007 World Cup round in Igorre, Spain, when he was the strongest man in the race until his derailleur let him down and Nys went on to win the race.

This time around Nys was the man who ran into bad luck as he flatted right after the race got under way. The world champion found himself at the back of the pack after switching bikes. "The next few laps I lost even more time as I got caught in traffic," Nys said.

Meanwhile Mourey set the pace up front during the opening lap. During the second and third lap Julien Taramarcaz (BMC) and Philipp Walsleben surged forward but halfway through the race they were caught back by a group which included Mourey, Thijs van Amerongen (AA Drink/Leontien.nl), Albert and Vantornout.

Mourey took the initiative for most of the fifth lap - with more rain and wind torturing the riders' backs - without causing much damage. At the end of that lap though, when climbing back up to the start-finish, the French champion rode solo.

"The moment Francis accelerated I had no answer ready. Already before the race I decided to ride my own pace on this tough course," Albert said. A little later Albert glanced back several times as he noticed Nys was closing in on him. During the penultimate lap Nys bridged up with the group at the tough off-camber section, in which he rode past everybody. "Sven was the strongest rider today. Overtaking those first forty riders is rather easy but then it gets really hard. It's quite the achievement he pulled off," Albert said.

Once in front of the chase group, Nys clearly wanted more than a second place to finish off his comeback ride. Meanwhile, Mourey was only leading the group by a fragile 15 seconds. Two things helped Mourey to the victory at that moment. The first factor was the ability of the French champion to clock two blistering fast final laps, the second was the crash from Nys in the mud. "I overdid it there," Nys said. "Instead of waiting for the last climb and focusing on second place I hoped for a mistake from Mourey and the victory." Instead Vantornout and Albert took profit and flanked Mourey on the podium.

On Boxing Day, December 26, the fifth round in the World Cup is held on the former F1 car circuit in Zolder. Van der Haar heads to Zolder with a lead of 13 points over Walsleben, and 22 points over Albert. Mourey will opt to stay at home for Christmas and skip Zolder.

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