Tour Poitou-Charentes stage 1: Arnaud Gérard soloes to victory

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The 2002 junior world champion Arnaud Gérard (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) took his first victory since the 2008 Polynormande at the end of the thrilling finale of stage 1 in the Tour Poitou-Charentes after breaking away as he followed a move by Tony Martin. On the second race of his comeback, the German impressed. He gained eight seconds over most of his rivals for the general classification set to take shape on stage 4 through a 23km individual time trial.

“There were a lot of attacks in the finale, I made sure we cover them all," Martin told Cyclingnews. “I accelerated myself at the top of the last climb [just inside 10km to go]. The guys were watching me but I’m happy I was in the front group. My come back race after my crash at the Tour de France [with the yellow jersey on stage 6 in Le Havre] was on Sunday in Hamburg. My form is good. My efforts these days are part of my preparation for the world championship.”

Alex Dowsett was upset that he and most of the time triallists let Martin go with eleven other riders, namely Gérard, Johan Le Bon (FDJ), Mirko Selvaggi (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Wout Poels (Sky), Daniel Teklehaimanot (MTN-Qhubeka), Maxime Daniel (AG2R-La Mondiale), José Herrada (Movistar), Angelo Tulik (Europcar), Sep Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo), Mauro Finetto (Southeast) and Rasmus Quaade (Cult) who was the other ITT specialist finishing three seconds down on lone winner Gérard while the peloton crossed the line with a deficit of 11 seconds.

Herrada was the only Movistar rider in the leading group although the Spanish squad made their way to the French race with top TT specialists Dowsett, Adriano Malori and Jonathan Castroviejo with the aim of winning the overall classification. Their teammate Jasha Sütterlin was part of the initial breakaway with Rudy Kowalski (Roubaix-Lille Métropole), Jordan Levasseur (Armée de Terre) and Thomas Wertz (Wallonie-Bruxelles). They got caught with 40km to go.

When the peloton passed the finishing line for the first time with 30km left, Martin was leading with Arthur Vichot (FDJ) on his wheel. He was putting a lot of riders in pain. His attack 9km before the end was decisive and he kept on impressing his breakaway companions. “It was all about Martin”, Gérard admitted. “In the front group, there wasn’t a perfect cooperation. It was obvious to everyone that he was the best time triallist of all of us and he had a big chance of winning GC if this breakaway worked. I bluffed him a bit. I rode away as we passed the 2km to go mark. Then I didn’t look back. Last weekend in Belgium, [Bretagne-Séché Environnement sport director] Sébastien Hinault was speaking about talking opportunities. I’ve taken the opportunity today. Now I’ll try to make a good GC as well.”

Gérard can probably count on Etixx-Quick Step for keeping the race together in the next two stages before the time trial for which Martin hasn’t hidden that he’s already back on track.

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