Bennati strikes again

Image 1 of 33

Anthony Roux collected his first overall victory in a stage race as he maintained his lead in the Circuit de la Sarthe-Pays de la Loire on the fourth and last day with the help of a very dedicated FDJ team. Daniele Bennati claimed his third stage win out of five in the French event as he won the final bunch sprint ahead of French neo-pro Nacer Bouhanni.

"It's been harder than people might think," a relieved Roux told Cyclingnews just after the finish. "The breakaway was going really fast."

After ten kilometres it was a fully Baltic breakaway group with Estonia's Rein Taarämae from Cofidis and Lithuania's Raimundas Navardauskas from Garmin-Cervélo, meaning two strong time triallists who didn't save any energy and created a gap of four minutes.

"When those two attacked, I punctured but Bouhanni gave his wheel very quickly," Roux said. "The peloton has been nice with me at that time but in the front, it was two "machines". My team worked really hard behind them. The chase was conducted by only three riders, Arnaud Gérard, Benoît Vaugrenard and Anthony Geslin.

"It's been fantastic to be escorted by such a dedicated team."

Pierrick Fedrigo was designated as Roux's right hand man and stayed next to him all the time while Bouhanni was kept fresh for the final sprint and collected the best result he could expect behind top sprinter Bennati.

"I was surprised when I saw the finishing circuit," Roux explained. "I expected something flat but it wasn't. I expected Thomas Voeckler to try and attack at the end, so I was prepared for that. Leopard rode with us at the end and when I looked at who was coming second and third, I was relieved."

Neither Blel Kadri nor David Millar took the time bonus that could have been a problem for Roux to win the overall classification. "To come second here after my good results at the Volta Catalunya and Criterium International is really positive," Kadri told Cyclingnews. It was a day for fairly young French riders to get confidence for bigger races to come.

"Maybe it looked easy for me to win this last sprint," Bennati said. "But on my SRM, I can see that I've had to do more than 300 watts average, so it shows the intensity of the last all the way. I'm so happy to win here today after losing the yellow jersey yesterday in the hills. I was a bit tired, to say the truth. Normally, I could have hanged on in those hills, but it's also understandable that Voeckler and the other guys have tried. Unfortunately, I wasn't having a great day of condition yesterday.

"Today, everything went according to the plan. I would have liked to win the overall here but with three stage wins out of five, I'm happy anyway."

Full Results