Démare sprints to Samyn victory

Arnaud Démare (FDJ-BigMat) gave a further demonstration of his burgeoning talent with an assured sprint victory at GP Le Samyn. The world under 23 champion saw off the challenge of Kris Boeckmans (Vacansoleil – DCM) and Adrien Petit (Cofidis) in Dour to claim his second win as a professional.

Timing was of the essence on the long, uphill finishing straight, and Démare showed a knowledge of his craft beyond his tender years to pitch his effort perfectly and overhaul Boeckmans inside the final 50 metres.

After controlling the peloton for much of the day and hunting down the breaks on the final lap of the finishing circuit, FDJ-BigMat’s sprint train had Démare perfectly placed on the wheels of Mikael Delage and Yauheni Hutarovich with 400 metres to go.

It was at this point that Boeckmans attempted to tear up the script, as he ripped clear along the barriers on the right hand side of the road. The plucky Belgian initially opened a sizeable gap, and with no discernible reaction behind, it briefly seemed as though he had enough in hand to hold on for the win.

Démare was simply biding his time, however, and he opened his sprint with 200 metres to go, sweeping past Boeckmans’ stalling teammate Romain Feillu in the process. The final drag to the line would prove interminable for Boeckmans; by comparison, Démare seemed to glide over the ground behind, making up three lengths on the Belgian and adding another for good measure even as he sat up to savour his win.

“It was hard to measure your effort, but I felt that I still enough in reserve,” a smiling Démare said afterwards. The 21-year-old was fresh from a fourth place finish at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne on Sunday, where he had acted as poisson pilote for Hutarovich, but the pair swapped roles in Belgium.

“At the briefing beforehand, it was decided that the guys would ride for me,” he said. “We’d already shown we could do that at Kuurne on Sunday, but this time the roles were different.”

Boeckmans was gallant in his bid for victory, but he freely admitted that he didn’t have the legs to sustain his effort on the drag to the finish. “In the last 50 metres, my legs were ready to explode, but Démare deserved the win,” he said. “It’s just a pity, because I was going well.”

The finishing straight was not altogether dissimilar from the finale on which Démare took his world title last September, and the parallels with Copenhagen were all the more appropriate given that his lead-out man on that occasion, Adrien Petit, came home in third place.

How it unfolded

The colour and tumult of the spring classics seemed a lifetime away as the peloton set out from Frameries under slate grey skies on Wednesday afternoon, but once the flag was dropped, there was no shortage of Belgian riders keen to get up the road. When the day’s break finally went, it was headlined by Iljo Keisse (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), who had Dennis Vanendert (Lotto-Belisol), Jonathan Breyne (Landbouwkrediet), Kevin Van Melsen (Accent Jobs) and Antoine Demoitie (Idemasport) for company.

It wasn’t until that quintet built up a lead of 8 minutes that the peloton was stirred from its slumber and FDJ-BigMat and Garmin-Barracuda assiduously set about tapping away at the deficit.

In spite of Keisse’s best efforts on the finishing circuit, particularly on the cobbled Côte de la Roquette, the break was reeled in with 25km to go, following a particularly long stint of tempo riding from Thomas Dekker (Garmin-Barracuda) behind.

Edwig Cammaerts (Cofidis) was an aggressive presence on the final lap of the circuit, and his forcing provided the impetus for Johan Le Bon (Bretagne-Schuller) and Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar) to go clear with 14km to go, but they never able to move out of sight of the peloton.

The next to try his luck was Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) as the young Pole jumped off the front after Jakob Fuglsang (RadioShack-Nissan) upped the pace on the final climb. His lead never stretched beyond ten seconds, however, and he too was captured as FDJ-BigMat took matters in hand for their young sprint talent Démare.

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