Hugo Drechou (Gravel Nation) and Sophie Wright (Ribble Outliers) powered through the dry and sunny conditions to claim victory at Wish One Millau Grands Causses, the opening French round of the UCI Gravel World Series.
The French champion claimed the men's title at the long running series event in a tight battle to the line with Jente Michels (Alpecin-Premier Tech), who took second place four seconds back. 2023 winner Toby Perry (Reverb) was third, finishing 16 seconds after Drechou, who completed the 130km course with over 2,000m of elevation gain in four hours and nine seconds.
British rider, Wright, on the other hand, was all in for a long solo. She escaped before the half way mark of the race and built the gap across the long climbs and technical gravel sections to cross the line with a substantial gap after 4 hours, 35 minutes and 25 seconds. Sofia Schugar MAAP Pro.Fwd) was second at just over 23 minutes later while in third, more than seven minutes further back in the broken up women's field, it was Leonie Laubig.
It was Wright's second series win of the season. also having claimed victory at Monaco Gravel, while it was a first UCI GraVel World Series win of 2026 for Drechou, who had put his powerful form on display last month at The Traka, claiming second at the 360.
Wish One Millau Grands Causses is the opening French round of the series and is one of the events that has been on the schedule right from the opening year in 2022. The second French round comes right at the end of the UCI Gravel World Championships qualifiers with the Pyrénées Catalanes Gravel Tour on Saturday September 26.
The World Championships will be held in Nannup, Western Australia on October 10-11.
Sophie Wright celebrates taking a clear-cut solo victory at Wish One Millau Grands Causses (Image credit: @virgovignon / Wish One Millau Grands Causses)
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Women's elite top 5
Position
Rider
Time Gap
1
Sophie Wright
4:35:25
2
Sofia Schugar
+23:01
3
Leonie Laubig
+31:32
4
Sandra Roger
+43:33
5
Minke Bakker
+1:07:53
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Elite men's top 5
Position
Rider
Time Gap
1
Hugo Drechou
4:00:09
2
Jente Michels
+04
3
Toby Perry
+12
4
Robin Bourdier
+1:05
5
Tom Martin
+1:10
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Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
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