Goss outsprints Farrar in Plouay

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Australia’s Matthew Goss (HTC-Columbia) claimed his first ProTour win as he succeeded his compatriot Simon Gerrans as the winner of the GP Ouest-France. He outsprinted Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Transitions) and Yoann Offredo (FDJ) on the finishing line in Plouay and sent an interesting message to the selectors of the Australian team for the world championship to be held in Victoria six weeks from now.

“Today I’ve proven I can race on this kind of circuit,” Goss told Cyclingnews straight after the finish. “This was a very hard race on a typical world championship circuit. It’s good for my confidence. It’s nice to win after that distance on a hard course.”

The organisers of the GP Plouay got permission from the UCI to add one more lap to the event and make it 248 kilometres long but it didn’t prevent the race from ending in another bunch sprint after a standard boring scenario for a ProTour race.

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The second attack that came soon after the start was made up of six riders: Benoît Vaugrenard (FDJ), Danny Pate (Garmin-Transitions), Ivan Rovny (RadioShack), Mickaël Delage (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun) and Yukihiro Doi (Skil-Shimano), and they were quickly joined by Mathieu Drujon (Caisse d’Epargne) and Pablo Urtasun (Euskaltel). The eight-men breakaway got a maximum lead of 13.40 and the bunch was booed by the Breton public for not riding aggressively, although the event is longer as popular as it was before Plouay hosted the world championship ten years ago.

HTC-Columbia was probably the most active team when the time came to close the gap. “We did a bit of work early on,” Goss commented. “It was worth it.” Mangel was the only one of the breakaway riders to survive in the lead as a counter-attack caught them at the beginning of the final lap. Francesco Gavazzi and Daniele Pietropolli (Lampre), Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step), Greg van Avermaet (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Haimar Zubeldia (Euskaltel), Bjorn Leukemans and Wouter Poels (Vacansoleil) were the other riders to insist at the front. While they were caught by the bunch with six kilometres to go, Mangel stayed clear for one more kilometre.

Davide Appollonio (Cervélo) and Dan Martin (Garmin-Transitions), who recently won the last stage of the Tour du Limousin and the Tre Valle Varesine respectively, were the last men to attack before the final bunch sprint. “The hardest thing for me was to wait and not attack,” said Offredo who had been told that it would be useless to lose energy prior to the bunch sprint as he did one week ago in Hamburg. “I had seen in the final kilometres that a couple of sprinters were missing so I was hoping for a top ten but maybe not the top three,” the young Frenchman told Cyclingnews. “At the end I felt I was even able to pass Farrar.” The FDJ rider was happy to finish third.

Farrar admitted he was “a little bit disappointed with the second place”. “It would have been amazing to win two classics in a row,” said the American who stormed to victory in Hamburg one week ago. “The course here was on the limit for me. It was hard but I managed to survive. Matt Wilson and Murillo Fisher killed themselves for me. I was nervous and I went too early but Goss did a perfect sprint.”

At the start of the ProTour event, the Australian was worried because he had been sick after the Tour of Denmark where he got into the winning mood again after his great successes at the Giro d’Italia (stage 9) and Philadelphia. “The cold went to my chest and I had a cough,” he revealed. At the end, he improved his status inside the national team in the making for the World’s. As Robbie McEwen revealed that he won’t make the final cut, Australia seems to have some reason for opting for younger sprinters.

Interestingly, only two pro races are held in the province of Morbihan in Brittany, and Goss won in Plouay after fellow Australian Wesley Sulzberger claimed the GP Plumelec in May. “We have the province wrapped up,” Sulzberger quipped afterwards.

Plouay and the region of Brittany will bid for hosting the world championship again with 2014 the possible date.

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