Naesen wins GP Ouest France Plouay

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Oliver Naesen (AG2R La Mondiale) won a rain-soaked edition of the Bretagne Classic/GP Ouest France Plouay, going long in the sprint to hold off Astana's Michael Valgren from a three-rider breakaway. Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) was third.

Michael Matthews (Sunweb) took out the sprint behind for fourth place.

Naesen, who won a kermesse in Erpe-Mere and the GP Lucien Van Impe before heading to France for the GP de Plouay, said he knew he wanted to win again.

"It is unbelievable that it was successful," Naesen said.

The 256.9km race started off under overcast skies and quickly a seven-man breakaway got away, containing Koen Bouwman (LottoNl-Jumbo), Paul Ourselin (Direct Energie), Maxim Belkov (Katusha-Alpecin), Warren Barguil and Maxime Bouet (Fortuneo-Oscaro), Alex Turrin (Wilier Triestina) and Mauro Finetto (Delko Marseille Provence KTM).

They built up a four-minute lead, but with 100km to go the rain began to fall and their gap quickly melted. With 70km to go, Quick-Step Floors pushed the pace on a gravel sector as the gap fell to one minute, but their efforts were countered by Wellens, who sparked a 15-rider counter-attack that became the new leading group.

As the cold rain began to fall harder, the group was whittled down to six with 15km to go, when Wellens, Valgren and Naesen escaped, leaving a chase group with Matthews, Zdenek Stybar (Quick-Step Floors), Oliver Le Gac (Groupama-FDJ) and Ruben Guerreiro (Trek-Segafredo).

The trio worked together to build up a minute's gap before the finish, where Naesen opened up the sprint early and rode Wellens out the back, while Valgren was unable to come around.

"If I sit on the front and know that I have good legs, I always give everything to make sure I do not miss a chance," Naesen said. "If I win a race, I don't want anyone to say afterwards that I was not the best." 

While Wellens had already conceded before the sprint, Valgren found himself out-matched by the Belgian. "I felt strong, but in the final hundred meters I discovered someone was even stronger," Valgren said. "Oliver Naesen was very good today, in the final sprint I tried to go in his wheel but he was just too fast. It was one of my better sprints this season, so I cannot complain.

"I’m happy with this result, as I had a lot of bad luck the last weeks, but today everything went well. My legs were good and I had some luck, so I have a good feeling about my second place today."

Wellens said he may have been over-eager with the attack that sparked the winning move, but was satisfied with the podium placing. "Third place was the highest possible result for me today," he said. "I helped to start up the finale and I have to admit that soon after that, I didn't have much left in the tank."

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