Olav Kooij continued his rich vein of form at the Grand Prix d'Isbergues on Sunday, taking the win following a consummate leadout from his Visma-Lease a Bike team, which resulted in a second place for his teammate Matthew Brennan.
In a final kilometre that was marred by a high-speed crash, Kooij stayed ahead of trouble to record his 12th victory of the season in one of his final appearances for the Dutch team before his move to Decathlon.
Jason Tesson (TotalEnergies) was the best of the rest, finishing in third place.
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Kooij gave an interview after his victory. He talked through the team’s plan. “[There were] quite some corners in the final, so it was important to be in a really good position and we did actually what we planned, to take the front, and then we had the strong guys to go a lead-out like this. We made a plan like this, and we were one and two, so we couldn’t ask for much better than this.”
On his strong season, he said: “It’s still nice to win at the end of the season as well, it’s been a good season already with quite some wins, so it’s nice to finish the season in a good way, so we just try to make the best out of the last races.”
The final round of the 2025 Coupe de France, the Grand Prix d’Isbergues Pas de Calais presented a tough, rolling parcours of 202km, and with a sprint final expected, it was no surprise to see a modest breakaway make their escape at the beginning of the day. Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Axel van der Tuuk (Euskatel-Euskadi), Miguel Ángel Marín (EF Education-Aevolo) and Wil Holmes (Hagens Berman Jayco) were given short shrift by the peloton, and when Dries de Bondt (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale joined the trio, Holmes and Marín were dropped, and the peloton closed them down and ultimately held them dangling a short distance ahead of the bunch for a considerable period of the race.
The trio persisted in the face of almost certain failure, though, with van der Tuuk throwing in the towel to leave a determined duo at the head of the race, still just 20 seconds clear of the bunch. They stubbornly resisted the catch until just 13kms to go, when they were finally swamped by the weight of the peloton. With one lap to go of the circuit, teams began to line up in colour order and look at one another, with TotalEnergies, Groupama-FDJ, XDS-Astana, Lotto and Visma-Lease a Bike all jostling for supremacy. Tudor Pro Cycling suffered a blow as their leader, Arvid de Kleijn - who wore the number as last year's victor at the race - went wide and ended up coming to a stop on the grass at the side of the road.
The bunch began to reduce in size under the high tempo set by Visma-Lease a Bike, and they led the charge at a frenetic pace heading through the two kilometre to go mark, and remained comfortably in control at the head of the bunch heading through the flamme rouge. There was drama in the final 500m as Paul Penhoët (Groupama-FDJ), Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) and Hugo Hofstetter (Israel-Premier Tech) collided and hit the deck, but there was no doubt as to the dominant team at the race, with Matthew Brennan leading out Olav Kooij, and continuing through behind him, to make it another one-two for the pair following three such finishes at the Tour of Britain two weeks ago.
At the conclusion of the Coupe de France, Clement Venturini (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) sealed the overall win in the series, with Groupama-FDJ winning the team classification.
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