"I knew it by heart" - Simon Carr takes advantage of home roads to take important victory at La Route d'Occitanie

Simon Carr is British but growing up it was in southern France that he developed as a rider. He has put quite some focus on La Route d'Occitanie, a home race for him, and he's conquered the final stage win because of it.

"You have to try to continue above all, it's been a good year so far," says the winner of the final stage of the French race, as he did at the Tour of the Alps. He attacked alongside Lars van den Berg in the mountainous part of the stage, and built the win off of that. "I'm off to a good start. 30 km from the finish, after the bottom of the descent, I understood that we could go to the end. In the last 5 kilometers I pushed less but I was still quite full, like him. I didn't want to throw, it was important not to do it first. I didn't even look behind, I watched only him."

The duo powered through the final flat section of the race and headed towards victory. The peloton didn't have enough firepower to close down the gaps, and in the end the duo battled for the win in a small sprint. Carr managed to outplay his rival of circumstance, with van den Berg launching the sprint first, and the 24-year old emerged victorious from the day.

"I knew it (the roads, ed.) by heart, not too much in training but on the Ronde de l'Isard, we have already covered the course more or less. It's the first time I've won in the sprint, I know I'm quite fast in a small breakaway," he concludes. He was hoping to fight for the GC at the start of the week, but now uses this win to build towards the national championships. "I came here with overall hopes, but I'm not quite up to speed yet."

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