Groupama-FDJ's Arnaud Demare has been drafted in to the French national team as leader for the European Championships road race in Plouay, France, on Wednesday as a result of winning the French championships road race on Sunday. Fellow sprinter Nacer Bouhanni (Arkéa-Samsic) has been dropped from the team as a result.
According to L'Equipe, French national selector Thomas Voeckler went to see Bouhanni in person to give him the bad news.
"Of course, he wasn't very happy," Voeckler told the French newspaper on Sunday. "But my job isn't to make people happy – it's to select the best French team possible.
"I'd like to thank the Arkéa team, who were very understanding while we worked together in what were some difficult circumstances," he said.
Démare won what was his third French road race title in a three-man sprint against B&B Hotels-Vital Concept's Bryan Coquard and Deceuninck-QuickStep's Julian Alaphilippe. Bouhanni finished 21st, in a group 16 seconds down on Démare.
According to L'Equipe, Démare will be supported by Benoît Cosnefroy, Lilian Calmejane, Cyril Gautier, Olivier Le Gac, Anthony Roux and Thomas Boudat, while there's still one more support role up for grabs, with Voeckler set to choose between Maxime Bouet, Mathieu Burgaudeau, Nans Peters et Clément Venturini.
