19/08/2023

“I’ve gained a lot of confidence” - Romain Gregoire secures overall victory at the Tour du Limousin

Groupama - FDJ's Romain Gregoire has continued to display the good legs he had to win the 4 Jours du Dunkerque by taking overall victory at the Tour du Limousin.

“I was still quite confident entering the day given the team’s work over the past three days,” said Gregoire to his team's official website after surviving the final stage with his leaf intact. “I knew I could trust them, and the day went pretty well. We managed to control it well and then we got help from the sprinters’ teams today. ”

"We already take enough risks on the bike" - Benoit Cosnefroy dissatisfied with Lewis Askey's sprint behaviour at Tour de Limousin

Once his victory was secured, Gregoire actually turned lead out man for teammate Lewis Askey, who finished 6th. “He felt good, and I wanted to give him confidence,” explained the Frenchman. “This morning, I told him: the priority is the yellow jersey, but if everything goes well, we’ll do the sprint for you. To be honest, it was also an advantage for me to be up front and involved in the race in order to avoid splits and crashes. It was a double benefit. I don’t think we did too badly. I dropped him with a bit more than 200 metres to go and he was able to sprint properly.”

"It’s done, and I’m actually quite happy it is over,” Gregoire concludes. “It’s a little relief because you never know what can happen on a circuit like that. In the end, everything worked out fine. I was not in danger on the circuit, and there weren’t a lot of attacks. It was a pretty quiet day, and it was also good like that.”