04/04/2023

Bryan Coquard sprints to victory on stage one of the Région Pays de la Loire Tour

Bryan Coquard sprinted to victory on stage one of the Région Pays de la Loire Tour on a flat day's racing in France.

The first stage of the 69th Région Pays de la Loire Tour, an almost dead flat, 151km course from Saint-Père-en-Retz to Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie seemed ideal for the pelotons sprint finishers. The trio of Valentin Ferron (TotalEnergies), Johan Meens (Bingoal WB) and Maël Guégan (CIC U Nantes Atlantique) tried their luck in the break.

Final startlist Région Pays de la Loire Tour with Valgren, Démare, Coquard, Bouhanni, Cimolai and Vauquelin

With just 23km to go, the breakaway still had a lead of just over a minute as Maël Guégan led the race over the king of the mountains and secured himself four points.EF Education-EasyPost were pulling the peloton, powered by a returning Michael Valgren and the breakaway's time gap began tumbling. With the peloton mere seconds away from the lead group, Valentin Ferron made one last effort to try and spring a surprise with 5km to go.

With the former Critérium du Dauphiné stage winner acting as a carrot, dangling in front of a ravenous peloton, Ferron was finally brought back by the bunch just 2.6km away from what would have been an incredible victory.

A crash in the peloton then saw a number of riders go down before the remaining sprint trains took hold with Bryan Coquard winning ahead of Marijn Van Den Berg and Manuel Penalver.