After Paris-Nice last week, next weekend will as usual see two French one day races taking place: the Classic Loire Atlantique on Saturday and Cholet-Pays de Loire on Sunday.

In this article you'll first find all details about the first race, the Classic Loire Atlantique, which is organised in and around La Haye-Fouassière, at about 15 kilometers south-east of Nantes*.

This weekend, www.velowire.com will be present at both races and you'll thus be able to discover all details, the photos and the results on this website during as soon as possible after the races!

The map with the route of the Classic Loire Atlantique 2012 on Google Maps/Google Earth

As usual, the race will take place as 11 laps on a circuit of 16.8 kilometers.

With its start and finish on the Boulevard Bernard Verlynde in La Haye-Fouassière, the race will visit the cities of Maisdon-sur-Sèvre, Château-Thébaud, Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine and Vertou over a total distance of 184.8 kilometers.

Hereunder you'll find the profil and the route of this race on Google Maps. Click on each of the images to open them.
>> Download the KML file with the Classic Loire Atlantique race route to see it in Google Earth

On the website of the Ligue Nationale de Cyclisme (LNC), Jean-Luc Chaillot, the president of the organising committee of the Classic Loire Atlantique declared about the race route of his race that it allows to have a scenario full of suspense in the magnificent looking wineyards, a high quality casting, and many B roles which make sure the result will remain uncertain, that's the ideal recipe to explain our success. We ahve the chance to be 100% sure that the 2 French Pro Teams will be at the start of the race. But we continuously work to get some others. The proof? In 2011, the winner of the race, the Dutch rider Lieuwe Westra, was part of the Vacansoleil team, which is at the elite level of international cycling!

The Classic Loire Atlantique part of the Coupe de France PMU

If the Classic Loire Atlantique was promoted in the UCI cycling calendar in class 1.1, this year the Classic goes on by becoming part of the Coupe de France PMU for the first time!

Indeed, together with the Route Adélie de Vitré which will take at the end of the month, the Classic Loire Atlantique is a new race of the Coupe de France PMU, thus bringing the number of races (all one day races) which are part of it to 16.

Cholet-Pays de Loire the next day will also still be a race of the Coupe de France PMU.

The list of participating riders and their bib numbers

Of course, Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team), who got some good results last week in Paris-Nice 2012, especially with his 2nd place in the general classification, behind Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky), will be present in the race in the Loire-Atlantique to defend the title he took last year! The Dutch rider will thus have the honour to wear bib number 1. Hereunder you'll find the complete list of participating riders with their bib numbers. For now this is a provisional list and it might thus still be subject to change. If that would be the case, it will be updated here before the start of the race on Saturday (if possible).

Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team

Next to the winner of the 2011 edition of the race, Lieuwe Westra, the Dutch team will come to this race with a very international delegation with no less than 5 4 nationalities for 8 riders:

1/ Lieuwe Westra
2/ Romain Feillu
3/ Barry Markus
4/ Wouter Mol
5/ Martin Mortensen
6/ Marcello Pavarin
7/ Mirko Selvaggi

FDJ BigMat

The French team with the clover, FDJ BigMat, will come to the Classic Loire Atlantique with Pierrick Fédrigo as its leader. All his team mates in this race will also be French.

11/ Pierrick Fédrigo
12/ Nacer Bouhanni
13/ Arnaud Courteille
14/ Anthony Roux
15/ Geoffrey Soupe
16/ Benoît Vaugrenard
17/ Mickaël Delage
18/ Frédéric Guesdon

AG2R La Mondiale

In the AG2R La Mondiale team, Jimmy Casper and Anthony Ravard will be the riders to follow in case the race finishes in a sprint. In the team, we'll also find the Iranian rider Amir Zargari who will discover the French races ...

21/ Steve Houanard Anthony Ravard
22/ Jimmy Casper
23/ Julien Bérard
24/ Gregor Gazvoda
25/ Sylvain Georges
26/ Romain Lemarchand
27/ Boris Shpilevsky
28/ Amir Zargari

Saur-Sojasun

The Saur-Sojasun team will come to the Classic Loire Atlantique with a completely French team, including Anthony Delaplace who ended 4th in the Coupe de France PMU 2011:

31/ Jérémie Galland
32/ Laurent Mangel
33/ Anthony Delaplace
34/ Jonathan Hivert
35/ Fabrice Jeandesboz
35/ Guillaume Levarlet
36/ David Le Lay
37/ Jean-Marc Marino
38/ Maxime Médérel

Cofidis, le crédit en ligne

Except for the Columbian Leonard Duqué, the Cofidis team will also send a French delegation:

41/ Nicolas Vogondy
42/ Damien Monier
43/ Mickaël Buffaz
44/ Jean-Eudes Demaret
45/ Leonardo Duqué
46/ Rudy Molard
47/ Tristan Valentin
48/ Arnaud Labbe

Team Europcar

The Team Europcar will come to the Classic Loire Atlantique with a purely French team. The most important riders of the team are probably Vincent Jérôme and Cyril Gautier.

51/ Vincent Jérôme
52/ Giovanni Bernaudeau Perrig Quémeneur
53/ Cyril Gautier
54/ Yohann Gène
55/ Said Haddou
56/ Christophe Kern
57/ Kévin Réza
58/ Sébastien Turgot

Bretagne-Schuller

Another 100% French team is Bretagne-Schuller which will have for example Dimitri Champion and Geoffroy Lequatre in the race:

61/ Romain Hardy
62/ Dimitri Champion
63/ Jean-Marc Bideau
64/ Renaud Dion
65/ Florian Guillou
66/ Geoffroy Lequatre
67/ Laurent Pichon
68/ Florian Vachon

Caja Rural

The Spanish continental pro team left quite a bad impression in the Classic Loire Atlantique 2011 by starting the race with riders of whom only 5 finished the race, some others stopping on the side of the road to watch the race go by!

This year, this team will come to the start with a team which will represent no less than 8 nationalities! The team will be led by Manuel Cardoso, who was still part of Team Radioshack last year.

71/ Manuel Cardoso Francesco Lasca
72/ Danail Petrov
73/ Garikoitz Bravo
74/ Yelko Gómez Hernani Broco
75/ Enzo Moyano
75/ Alexander Ryabkin
76/ Karol Domagalski
77/ Fabricio Ferrari

Team Type 1-Sanofi

Team Type 1-Sanofi, which set itself the goal to communicate around diabetes at the races to which it participates, will come to the start of the race with 2 of its 4 French rider: the Marseillais Julien Antomarchi and the Hungarian rider who's been in France for a long time and adopted the French nationality, Laszlo Bodrogi. The directeur sportif will also be French because the team will be supervised by Frédéric Moncassin.

81/ Julien Antomarchi
82/ Rubens Bertogliati
83/ Laszlo Bodrogi
84/ Alexander Efimkin
85/ Filippo Fortin
86/ Javier Megias
87/ Joey Rosskopf
88/ Alexander Serebryakov

Landbouwkrediet

The Belgian team will come to the Classic Loire Atlantique with almost a half-on-half Belgian/Dutch team ... Bobbie Traksel didn't manage to get over his bronchitis in time and will thus not participate in the race on Saturday.

91/ Frédéric Amorison
92/ Sébastien Delfosse
93/ Bert de Waele
94/ Gilles Devillers
95/ Dirk Bellemakers
97/ Bobbie Traksel
96/ Stefan Cohnen
97/ Reinier Honig
98/ Davy Commeyne

Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator

The second Belgian team opted for a 100% Belgian selection:

101/ Michael van Staeyen Pieter Vanspeybrouck
102/ Laurens de Vreese
103/ Preben van Hecke
104/ Steven van Vooren
105/ Eliot Lietaer
106/ Stijn Neirynck Zico Waeytens
107/ Pieter Jacobs
108/ Tom van Asbroeck

Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda's

In the 3rd Belgian team we'll find two Dutch riders, one Ukranian and 5 Belgian riders, including Thomas Degand who was in one of the breakaways in the 2011 edition of this race:

111/ Steven Caethoven
112/ Staf Scheirlinckx
113/ Thomas Degand
114/ Grégory Habeaux
115/ Kévin van Melsen
116/ Oleg Chuzhda
117/ Arnoud van Groen
118/ Jurgen van Goolen

Bridgestone Anchor Cycling Team

This Japanese continental team employs 3 French riders, who will all be at the start of the Classic Loire Atlantique. 2 of them are back in the life of a pro after having spent one or two years in an amateur team while the third one is a neo-pro in the team. In addition to these 3 French riders, the only Belgian rider of the team will be at the start as well, just like 4 of the 5 Japanese riders.

121/ Thomas Lebas (néo-pro)
122/ Blaise Sonnery (ex-AG2R La Mondiale)
123/ Alexandre Lemair (ex-Roubaix-Lille Métropole)
124/ Klaas Sys
125/ Miyataka Shimizu Ryota Nishizono
126/ Kazuo Inoue
127/ Hayato Yoshida
128/ Kenji Itami

Véranda Rideau-Super U

This new French continental team will come to the start with 7 French riders and one of the Olejnik brothers:

131/ Justin Jules
132/ Freddy Bichot
132/ Kévin Denis
134/ Maxime Le Montagner
135/ Guillaume Malle
136/ Romain Mathéou
137/ Arnaud Molmy
138/ Tomasz Olejnik

BigMat-Auber 93

The last rider who won a race for the BigMat-Auber 93 team and who's still present in the team (Sylvain Georges left for AG2R La Mondiale this year and Maxime Médérel left for Saur-Sojasun) is Fabien Bacquet (in March 2010 in the Tour de Normandie) and he'll also be at the start of the Classic Loire Atlantique:

141/ Jonathan Thiré
142/ Romain Bacon Ronan Racault
143/ Fabien Bacquet
144/ Nicolas Bazin
145/ Mathieu Drujon
146/ Benoit Drujon Steven Tronet
147/ Johan Mombaerts Dimitri Le Boulch
148/ Nicolas Rousseau

Team La Pomme Marseille

The forelast French team is the Team La Pomme Marseille and among the riders for "LPM" we'll find among others Yohan Cauquil who ended at the 3rd place last year ... We'll also find Clément Koretzky who showed off his qualities in the first stage of the Tour du Haut Var-Matin.

151/ Yohan Cauquil
152/ Clément Koretzky
153/ Benjamin Giraud Grégoire Tarride
154/ Mathieu Delarozière
155/ Yannick Martinez
156/ Pierre-Luc Périchon
157/ Evaldas Siskevicius
158/ Toms Skujins

Roubaix-Lille Métropole

The last French team is Roubaix-Lille Métropole:

161/ Julien Guay
162/ Anthony Colin
163/ Loïc Desriac
164/ Pierre Drancourt
165/ Morgan Kneisky
166/ Kevin Lalouette
167/ Fabien Schmidt
168/ Boris Zimine

Relive the 2011 edition of the Classic Loire Atlantique

Awaiting the 2012 edition this Saturday, you can relive the 2011 edition of the Classic Loire Atlantique, by checking out the photos and by reading the article with a summary of this race: Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) confirms his good conition and wins the Classic Loire Atlantique.

* un autre article suivra avec toutes les informations sur Cholet-Pays de Loire.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Classic Loire Atlantique | Coupe de France | OpenStreetMap/Google Maps/Google Earth

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