Etoile de Besseges: Laporte wins stage 2 sprint in Generac

Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) denied Bryan Coquard (Vital Concept Club) with a last dash sprint on stage 2 of Etoile de Besseges. Timothy Dupont (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) held onto the pair on the slightly uphill and curving finale to claim the third place.

After a furiously fast lead-out from his team, Coquard took up the sprint first and looked destined to take the win. Coquard thought that he had it in the back and had even begun celebrating when he saw Laporte’s wheel slip up his left-hand side to steal the win. Laporte had chased down Coquard’s sprint, helped by the gradual curve to the left, lunging to the line with millimetre-perfect accuracy. It took a photo finish to split the two but it was Laporte who took the spoils.

The scene was somewhat similar to the 2016 Dwars door Vlaanderen when Coquard was sure that he’d won and threw his arms up in celebration only to see Lotto-Soudal’s Jens Debusschere lunge past him and win.

The victory was enough to put Laporte into the lead of the overall classification, with Coquard and the previous leader Marc Sarreau (FDJ) in second and third respectively on the same time as the Cofidis rider.

Sarreau began the day in Nimes as the race leader after winning the bunch sprint on the opening day of action. The defence of his race lead would involve a 151-kilometre ride from the picturesque city of Nimes to the south to Générac. The peloton would get several opportunities to scout out the finish line with five 10km laps of the finishing circuit. Gilets plus leg and arm warmers were the order of the day with the temperatures dipping to a nippy eight degrees and the cloudy sky continuing into the second day.

There was plenty of action from the start but it wasn’t until the first of two classified ascents that something tangible began to form. Romain Combaud (Delko Marseille-Provence KTM), Michael Van Staeyen (Cofidis) and Jérémy Cabot (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) disappeared up the road after almost 10 kilometres of racing. Amore & Vita-Prodir’s Iltjan Nika tried to follow but he was quickly brought back to the peloton. Cabot and Staeyen were soon too enjoying the comforts of the bunch, leaving Combaud on his own.

Combaud was briefly reeled in but found three more companions to have a go with following the first climb of the day. This time he brought with him Jimmy Turgis (Cofdis), Pierre Idjouadiene (Roubaix-Lille Metropole) and Davide Gabburo (Amore & Vita-Prodir). Dries van Gestel (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) and Kevin Le Cunff (St-Michel-Auber 93) later jumped across the gap, although the latter had to struggle over several kilometres to make the juncture.

Once he was there, the six riders eked out a maximum advantage of 4:40 before the peloton took a handle on the situation. It was understandably FDJ who did much of the work on the front with Direct Energie lending the occasional hand to their compatriots. As the riders hit the circuits in Générac, the gap had been cut to 2:30. Gabburo and Idjouadiene were the first to lose touch with the leaders and with just one lap to go the remaining four had just 14 seconds on the baying pack.

Sensing the surge from behind, the quartet pushed its lead out to 20 seconds and held firm up to the final kilometre. Perhaps feeling that the move might stick, Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Sean de Bie (Veranda’s Willems Crelen) tried to jump across the gap. Their move proved a carrot to the peloton which brought all six riders back with a kilometre still to run.

It was only then that Vital Concept Club made a serious appearance on the front, looking to deliver Coquard to the line. Their lead-out was near-perfect and Coquard charged to the line but the curving road gave the advantage to Laporte and perhaps the premature celebration lost Coquard the vital millimetres he needed for victory.

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