Pelucchi storms to Sarthe stage win

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Matteo Pelucchi scored his first win for IAM Cycling in the crash-marred finale of Stage 1 at Circuit de la Sarthe. A number of the favourites managed to avoid the carnage with Pelucchi outsprinting his compatriot Sacha Modolo (Bardiani-CSF) and the up-and-coming French duo of Bryan Coquard (Europcar) and Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ).

"At home before coming to this race, I already felt I had good legs," Pelucchi explained after the finish. "I haven't raced much yet. I came second in Stage 1 at the Tour of the Méditerranéen and I've done some classics but that's very difficult. I knew about the possibility of a bunch sprint finish today. My team gave me confidence, which is something I need for winning. It was an unusual sprint. With two laps to go on the finishing circuit, I understood that it would be a very fast sprint due to the tail wind. That's what suits me the best. I like to finish with a high speed like that."

Pelucchi was not affected by the crash that put many riders down with 2.5km to go. The sprint was tense again with 300 metres to go when both Coquard and Bouhanni got pushed towards the barricades. "It obliged me to open my sprint from far out," Coquard deplored. His teammate Kevin Reza who was his lead-out man for his two stage wins at Le Tour de Langkawi spent most of the day in a three-man breakaway with Ronny Martias (Sojasun) and Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF). "In a race contested by 6-man teams, we never know, it's always good to have someone at the front," Reza said. "But we knew it was logical to have a bunch sprint finish. We had a good card to play with Bryan."

Ironically, Pelucchi won the stage he finished only third in last year when he raced for local team Europcar. He scored two victories [at the Four Days of Dunkirk and the 2.2 Ronde de l'Oise] for the French before embarking on the Swiss project of IAM Cycling. "I' had a great year with Europcar," he underlined. "It's like a family but I've also found a very good team with IAM Cycling. I'm happy with my choice. We're strongly hoping for a wild card for the Tour de France anytime soon. With top-10 [placings] in the classics, we've demonstrated that we're competitive enough."

"At Circuit de la Sarthe, we also hope to do well on GC with Thomas Löfkvist," he warned ahead of the 6.8km individual time trial scheduled in Angers on Wednesday afternoon. The Swede will be confronted by the young guns from Orica GreenEdge, including defending champion Luke Durbridge and individual pursuit double world champion Michael Hepburn, and RadioShack Leopard riders Bob Jungels and Jesse Sergent.

According to Bouhanni, who came fourth behind Modolo (Bardiani) and Coquard (Europcar), he was in a fine position to take the sprint, but was nearly taken out by Pelucchi when the Italian came alongside and hooked his bars by passing too closely.

"I was behind Coquard with 200 meters to go, and I was going to start my sprint on the left of him. On my left, Pelucchi squeezed through and hooked my handlebars.

"I don't know how I avoided crashing and probably taking down the rest with me, we were travelling at 60 km/h... A guy like that, he should be banned. He is ready to play with his life and that of others for a sprint," Bouhanni said.

The French champion was especially bitter because, he said, his FDJ team drove the pace behind the day's breakaway without help from the other teams.

The breakaway left at kilometer seven of the 179.4km stage, with Martias (Sojasun) and Boem (Bardiani) being joined shortly by Reza (Europcar).

The trio pulled out a maximum advantage of five minutes before being slowly reeled in by the bunch. There was a crash with 2km to go that caused the bunch to split, and put Iker Camano (NetApp) and Sam Bewley (Orica GreenEdge) on the ground, but the remainder of the peloton was awarded the same time.

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