Paris-Chauny, Alan Riou: "Give everything for the team"
Reputed to favour the sprinters, Paris-Chauny can however give rise to other scenarios depending on the weather conditions encountered.
“Paris-Chauny is a race that usually crowns a sprinter, but beware, because its approach can be tricky, on some clear sections of the course the wind can indeed stretch the peloton. On the approach to the circuit, there is also a series of small “climbs” that can lead to breaks. Victory is generally decided in a sprint, but this can be either a bunch sprint or a small group sprint. You have to be careful. I feel good at the end of the season. My legs have been good since the start of the Artic Race. My mission is to work for the team, to make sure that our scorers get UCI points so that the team can enter the UCI WorldTour next year. I have been working for two years as a team member to achieve this, and my motivation and that of the whole team is to reach this goal. To achieve this would be a great reward for everyone.”
“I have good memories of this race, especially the 2020 edition with the success of Nacer Bouhanni. It is a classic that often smiles to the sprinters, the only reserve to take into account in this kind of scenario is the weather conditions, and especially if the wind should rise. But I think that on Sunday the weather will be good. A very good group of sprinters is listed among the participants. The organisers have made the course of their race harder in order to make it easier, but I think that it will be a sprint and that the winner will be decided. We have a lot of strengths in this area, including Hugo Hofstetter and Matis Louvel. A good result from them will generate UCI points, the famous passport to the UCI WorldTour in 2023, our objective for this season. Donavan will also be precious to us because in 2020 he did a great job for Nacer.”
“Paris-Chauny is an event that has been successful for us in the recent past. We want to continue this momentum. The competition is intense at the end of the season, as many teams, like ours, are engaged in a UCI points race that will determine at the end of the season the 18 teams that will be part of what we can call the 1st division of the professional cycling peloton. But even if the competition will be strong in the Hauts de France, we have ambitions, the ambition to obtain the best possible result, because the essence of the sport, before evoking the points that such or such place brings, remains the performance. We will try to dynamise the final part of the race to try to crush the peloton, and if there is a sprint, we will try to put Hugo Hofstetter in the best position to face the best sprinters of the peloton. The Arkéa-Samsic team is strong in Paris-Chauny, and it is by working together that we will get what we are looking for in the Aisne”