That's tomorrow, Sunday. Yep, on the same day and at about the same time as Gent–Wevelgem, isn't that brilliant? Why didn't they put this race on Saturday, between the two Belgian races of the week, is beyond me (well, my bet would be that it is 99% about the local elected officials who don't want it on a Saturday).

The finish line is in Tours, in the Loire valley.

It is one of those French races which present punchy hills, but those (or the field of riders) are often not enough to completely break away and avoid the victory of a sprinter within a group of undetermined size.

As this is a 'mega'-thread, I won't put pictures of the course here, to avoid overloading the page; but they are on my small post in French: https://sh.itjust.works/post/57573667

PCS page

No Uno-X this year, they have become too good for our little races, but Beton will represent the tradition of Danish looters 🤣

[–] Deschanel2027@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 weeks ago

Brilliant Sunday for the World Team FDJ, engaged on 3 races:

Tours (1.1) : no one in top-10,
Wevelgem (1.WT): no one in top -10,
Catalunya (2.WT): no one in stage top-10 (no one in any stage top-10, no one in GC top-30, no one in KOM top-30, no one in Points at all).

Anyway... This year a group managed to break away in the final part around Tours and the peloton completely gave up. I think the decisive factor was that the varied first group who broke away was then joined by another group composed of only 'major' French teams (WT and big PT). Then there was almost no team left for pulling behind (and the smaller teams who weren't at the front had generally already played their cards) .

Coquard (🇫🇷 Cofidis) started his sprint too early and then went backwards. I thought Marcellusi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) had 'stopped' too, but he managed to finish 2^nd^ I don't know how.

And that's another victory for Unibet! This team is really tailored for this kind of hard-but-not-too-hard races.