Bruno Armirail fends off Kévin Vauquelin to take third French National Time Trial Championships title in four years

Defending French national time trial champion Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) successfully defended his title against a concerted push for gold by Tour de Suisse runner-up Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels).

Armirail's up-and-coming young teammate, Paul Seixas, secured another top result this season with bronze, 44 seconds back.

Already the winner both in 2022 and 2024, Armirail got off to a scorching start on the rolling 26.5 kilometre course at Les Herbiers. The 31-year-old then held steady in the hillier middle section to maintain a nine-second gap on his closest rivals by the third checkpoint at km 17.6.

After Armirail opened up the throttle even further to ensure he had all the fastest intermediate times, barring total disaster, only one result was really possible, and the Decathlon racer duly finished atop the results board 21 seconds ahead of Vauquelin.

Vauquelin was unlucky enough to crash early on, hurting his elbow and thigh, but fortunately, his injuries were minor enough for him to be quickly back on his bike.

However, while Vauquelin said later that Armirail deserved the win, he added that in terms of his own ride, he felt he had overcompensated in the second half as a result of the crash, and perhaps had paid a price for that.

Meanwhile, Seixas was engaged in a ding-dong battle with former double champion Cavagna. Narrowly ahead of Cavagna at the opening checkpoint (Km7) by less than a second, Seixas dropped to a second behind at km 11.

He finally came home six seconds ahead of Cavagna – a huge result for such a young rider, in what is the longest ever TT of his career to date.

Meanwhile, Armirail was busy celebrating the victory, his first since the National Time Trial title last year.

"It was one of the big objectives of the season," Armirail said afterwards to race TV. "I was preparing more for the Tour de France than the Championships, but seeing how it worked out, I'm satisfied."

"Paul's got bronze and at 18, that's really good, he's going to win quite a few races in advance. Kevin's also doing very well – there's a really nice generation of riders coming through."

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