Pierrick Fédrigo holds on till the finish in Cholet Pays de Loire 2015

Added: sunday 22 March 2015 at 20:09:00

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In the 38th edition of Cholet Pays de Loire, a very big breakaway group was formed early in the race and the riders who were not part of this group saw their possible hopes for victory go away rather quickly. Indeed, all the teams were part of this breakaway and there was thus not much chasing going on. After different attacks from the breakaway, Pierrick Fédrigo (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) finally got off alone in the final circuit and the French rider managed to win the race, 10 years later ...
The summary of Cholet Pays de Loire 2015
The 3rd race of the Coupe de France PMU 2015, Cholet Pays de Loire took place today under a pretty cloudy sky. With 137 riders at the start, the race went off for 208 kilometers north of the city of Cholet.

After a first attempt by Quentin Jauregui (AG2R La Mondiale), 19 riders got away from the peloton and before they reached the kilometer 50 they were joined by 21 other riders and thus formed a group of no less than 40 riders, in which all the teams of this Cholet Pays de Loire 2015 were present. Their gap was one minute at that time and the group continued to increase the gap, up to 2'30" after 75 kilometers in the race.

Apparently, none of these 40 riders really planned to win the Challenge des 10 bosses, the classification on the 10 difficulties all along the race route, and the points for this challenge were thus taken by several riders, mainly Linus Gerdemann (Cult Energy Pro Cycling) who arrived first on top of the first climb (the Côte du Cimetière-Les Gardes), Kevin Lebreton (Equipe Cycliste de l'Armée de Terre), Yukiya Arashiro (Team Europcar) and Cédric Pineau (FDJ).

From the leading group, a small breakaway was formed on top of the 4th climb, the Côte de la Croix Baron, on which the riders would return 13 kilometers further. The riders in this breakaway were Pieter Jacobs (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Yukiya Arashiro (Team Europcar), Nicolas Edet (Cofidis), Christian Mager (Cult Energy), Romain Le Roux (Armée de Terre) and Yoann Paillot (Team Marseille 13-KTM), who were joined by Cédric Pineau (FDJ) and later on by Daniel McLay (Bretagne-Séché Environnement), before this small groupe broke up and was partly joined by the other riders of the initial breakaway when Cédric Pineau decided to attack.

The rider of the FDJ team was joined by Julien Duval (Armée de Terre) and Timothy Dupont (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) and thus formed a breakaway trio at about 65 kilometers from the finish. About fourty kilometers from the finish, this small group was joined by Thomas Voeckler (Team Europcar) and Pierrick Fédrigo (Bretagne-Séché Environnement).

When they entered the final circuit (29 kilometers long), this breakaway lost two of its elements, Duval and Dupont, and the remaining trio thus went on to the first crossing of the finish line. At that time their gap on their first followers was 37 seconds and it was thus clear that something needed to be done if they wanted to keep hoping to stay ahead. And that's what Pierrick Fédrigo did when he attacked at a bit over 20 kilometers to go and alone, the rider of the Bretagne-Séché Environnement team managed to increase his gap.

Antoine Demoitié (Wallonie-Bruxelles) and Jon Insausti (Murias-Taldea) counter attacked from the chasing group and they were joined by Baptiste Planckaert (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) and Ignatas Konovalovas (Team Marseille 13-KTM). These four chasing riders never managed to get back on Pierrick Fédrigo however and the rider - who already won Cholet Pays de Loire in 2005 - thus again took the victory 10 years after his last win on these routes, 21 seconds ahead of the groupe with Insausti, Planckaert, Demoitié and Konovalovas.
The video of Cholet Pays de Loire 2015
Early next week you can find here a summary video of Cholet Pays de Loire 2015. In the mean time, you can discover the video of the finish as published by the Ligue Nationale de Cyclisme:

The photos of Cholet Pays de Loire 2015
You'll find a selection of 40 photos of Cholet Pays de Loire 2015 in the corresponding photos section:

>> watch the photos of Cholet Pays de Loire 2015
The classifications of Cholet Pays de Loire 2015
Here are the classifications of this 3rd race of the Coupe de France PMU 2015:
Race classification
Hereunder you'll find the top 10 of the race:

1/ Pierrick Fédrigo (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) - 5h02'11"
2/ Jon Insausti (Murias-Taldea) - +0'21"
3/ Baptiste Planckaert (Roubaix-Lille Métropole)
4/ Antoine Demoitié (Wallonie-Bruxelles)
5/ Ignatas Konovalovas (Team Marseille 13-KTM)
6/ Yukiya Arashiro (Team Europcar) - +0'54"
7/ Nicolas Edet (Cofidis, solutions crédits)
8/ Romain Le Roux (Equipe Cycliste de l'Armée de Terre) - +1'00"
9/ Théo Vimpère (Auber 93) - +1'18"
10/ Justin Jules (Veranclassic-Ekoi)
Classification of the "Challenge des 10 bosses" (King of the Mountains)
As indicated in the summary, no one really tried to get the win in the "Challenge des 10 bosses" and it was thus a bit of a hasard that Cédric Pineau (FDJ) won it:

1/ Cédric Pineau (FDJ) - 12 points
2/ Pierrick Fédrigo (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) - 11 points
3/ Yukiya Arashiro (Team Europcar) - 11 points
4/ Kevin Lebreton (Equipe Cycliste de l'Armée de Terre) - 10 points
5/ Linus Gerdemann (Cult Energy Pro Cycling Team) - 8 points
Coupe de France PMU 2015
For the Coupe de France PMU 2015, Pierrick Fédrigo now has the same number of points as Alexis Gougeard, who won the second race yesterday, and Fédrigo thus becomes the new leader of the individual classification:

1/ Pierrick Fédrigo (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) - 50 points
2/ Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale) - 50 points
3/ Baptiste Planckaert (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) - 45 points
4/ Kenneth van Bilsen (Cofidis, solutions crédits) - 35 points
5/ Maxime Renault (Auber 93) - 28 points
by Thomas Vergouwen
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Pierrick Fédrigo sent toujours aussi bien la course ! Tout comme Thomas Voeckler - qui devrait bientôt en regagner une - il prouve que la "vieille garde" n'est pas à bout de souffle. Bravo à Bretagne-Séché Environnement qui s'affirme...mais quand pourra-ton en dire autant de Cofidis qui continue de me décevoir (même si je suis ravi de la 6ème place de Bouhanni à Milan San Remo). FDJ ne semble pas non plus au mieux...
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| Pierre CROLAIS | sunday 22 March 2015 at 20:50:06