Nacer Bouhanni 4th in Valencia
New place in the sprint for Nacer Bouhanni, 4th in the Drôme.
On the Line
“I came in at the limit of the group that caused a crash, and after that we stayed in the peloton until the end. It’s a pity that we didn’t manage to organize ourselves at the flamme rouge. Deceuninck was leading, Clément Russo made a big effort to bring me back to the front, but the problem was that I used up my cartridges before starting my sprint, as soon as I got into the wind I didn’t have any energy left to sprint. Dan was hindered and couldn’t catch Clément’s wheel, otherwise it would have been different, that’s how we have to approach the next stages which can end in a bunch sprint“.
“The day was quiet for me. We were playing this stage of Valencia with Nacer promised to the sprinters. The final part of the stage was exposed to the wind and some teams tried to ride on the edge. I finished calmly. Tomorrow’s stage is the Mont Ventoux and I will try to score more points in the mountain classification. I hope that tomorrow will be a good day. I like this pass, you have to be good to negotiate it, but I certainly like this pass“.
The debrief
“We were in direct contact with Yvon Ledanois who was in the lead and gave us all the information. It was very fragile because the wind was unstable during the whole stage. If we had passed half an hour before, there would have been more damage. Nacer doesn’t do an optimal sprint, he had to make an effort at the 300 metres and then he didn’t have all the resources necessary to do a sprint with all the energy he needs. This is only a temporary setback. I would like to congratulate everyone, Elie who made tempo at the front of the peloton, Warren who pulled him up in the final and his train who gave the maximum once again“.