Démare on the double at Tour de l'Eurométropole

Arnaud Démare (FDJ.fr) claimed his second win in as many days at the Tour d’Eurometropole as he saw off the challenge of Jens Debusschere (Lotto Belisol) and Theo Bos (Belkin) to win the bunch sprint in Nieuwpoort.

The finale was marred by a mass crash that took Adrien Petit (Cofidis) – Démare’s lead-out man when he claimed the under-23 Worlds in 2011 – out of the running. Lotto-Belisol set the pace through the closing kilometres in support of Debusschere but in the final sprint, the French champion Démare proved too quick.

Throughout the day, FDJ.fr had shared policing duties at the head of the peloton with Lotto and Omega Pharma-QuickStep. Although there was no shortage of willing attackers along the Franco-Belgian border, with Matti Breschel (Tinkoff-Saxo) especially prominent, no move gained much more than two minutes over the bunch and a sprint finish was inevitable.

Démare remains in the overall lead following his 13th win of the season and his fourth in the past two weeks. Indeed, the majority of his victories this year have been amassed in Belgium and northern France, as he already tasted success at the Four Days of Dunkirk and Tour of Picardy earlier in the season, and the GP d’Isbergues and Championship of Flanders last month.

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