Westra wins Classic Loire Atlantique

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Lieuwe Westra took the honours at the Classic Loire-Atlantique to seal his first win since the 2009 Tour of Picardy, but it came as no surprise to anyone who watched Paris-Nice last week. The Dutchman from Vacansoleil-DCM was very active during the “race to the sun,” where he finished sixth in the stage six time trial. This followed his second place behind Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad) at the Tour of Algarve time trial. He has thus begun 2011 as he concluded his 2010 season, when he was a strong third place at the Chrono des Nations behind David Millar and Edvald Boasson Hagen.

For the first time, the ten-year-old Classic Loire-Atlantique was upgraded to 1.1 status. The race was held on a 16.8km circuit to be covered eleven times around La Haye-Fouassière near Nantes in the vineyards of the Muscadet.

“This is a very nice race with no flat section,” Westra said. “I knew I had a good condition after Paris-Nice but it was only after two or three hours of racing here that my legs started to feel good. In the breakaway with the three other guys, I took it very easy.”

With 35 kilometres to go, the decisive breakaway took shape. Anthony Geslin (FDJ), Jean-Marc Marino (Saur-Sojasun) and Frédéric Amorison (Landbouwkrediet) accompanied Westra. Their maximum lead over the bunch was only 55 seconds with 13km to go.

The Europcar team rode hard to close the gap and prepared a counter attack by Thomas Voeckler, who was followed by defending champion Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun). A group of five with Serguey Lagutin (Vacansoleil-DCM), Bert Scheirlinckx (Landbouwkrediet), Julien Antomarchi and Yohan Cauquil (La Pomme-Marseille) and Arnoud Van Groen (Vérandas Willems) bridged the gap with 4km to go. Scheirlinckx attacked in the finale, but Westra caught him with 300 metres to go and went on past him.

“When I reached his back wheel, I stayed there for 100 metres and I thought: this is for me to win, and I gave it all,” Westra told Cyclingnews after the finish. “Voeckler was the strongest but many riders were looking at him, not at me. I’m happier to be here to win than to be at Milan-San Remo with no result.”

Voeckler said he had no regrets about his race. “I tried to win and we did our best for that but I just needed to recover from my brutal efforts when they (Scheirlinckx and Westra) attacked,” the French champion said.

Voeckler and Westra were two of the best riders at Paris-Nice, and Voeckler will be out for revenge on Sunday when the two men line up at the French Cup event Cholet-Pays de Loire.