Romain Gregoire emerges victorious at Faun-Ardèche Classic 2025 as confusing finale sees a number of riders get lost!
Cycling
Confusion was the leading emotion after a curious finale to the 2025 Faun-Ardèche Classic saw half the lead group take a wrong turning inside the final kilometre, allowing Groupama - FDJ's Romain Gregoire to take the win.
7 riders attacked early to form the day's breakaway, with the most notable among them being Lotto's Jonas Gregaard and TotalEnergies' Matteo Vercher. The peloton was keeping things on a relatively tight leash though, not allowing the break to build a big advantage. Heading into the final 30km though, despite numerous attacks from the bunch, a trio of Vercher, Kamiel Bonneu and Xabier Mikel Azparren remained clear at the front of the race.
Once they were caught, the big attacks started again on the climb of the Saint-Romain-de-Lerps, with XDS Astana Team's Lorenzo Fortunato proving strongest, crossing the summit of the ascent with a lead of around 25 seconds. On the final little rise of the day, Fortunato was joined at the front by Enric Mas. Inside 3km to go though, both had been caught by the chase. In a 12-man fight for the line, it was expected to be a reduced-bunch sprint, but confusion casued the majority of the group to take a wrong turning in the finale, allowing Romain Gregoire to take victory ahead of Marco Brenner and Fortunato.
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- Alcohol is never an excuse, on the contrary, it's an aggravating factor.
maria2024202414-04-2025 - In the race they talk constantly to each other; it seems as if they're teammates. Obviously, when the crucial moment arrive, they attack each other to win, but it's evident the respect, sympathy, and friendship between them.maria2024202414-04-2025
- True, sorryMistermaumau14-04-2025
- Wout Van Aert won a Monument (San Remo, 2020), so he wouldn't be in that article. He might be in an article of riders like Sagan who were truly exceptional and won fewer monuments that expected. As for these two, they've won the last 7 monuments, 10 of the last 12, 15 of the last 20. Merckx and de Vlaeminck weren't that dominant in their era. It really is special the way these two race with such admiration for each other along the way. Rivals, not enemies.RidesHills14-04-2025
- So drunk Belgians will always target MvDP because they are drunk. That can't be right. If drunk Belgians target all other cyclist equally, then it may be reasonable.
KerisVroom14-04-2025 - Nobody cares about this nonsense.
Front24214-04-2025 - Thanks! Hadn’t heard of that word so would have been hard to search very specifically without your input.Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- Ok, that’s this year’s gold medal for classy comments :-)Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- of course it’s predictable. a dad is proud of his son. nothing else matters, and his dad was a celebrated rider in his own right. maybe if people respected the human side of this story, and these people, we would see fewer bidons thrown. lastly as a dad, I appreciate this. a dad should have be given grief for showing pride and love for his child. we need more dads and examples like Adriemij14-04-2025
- i willfully CHOOSE to believe in your theory about greatness being sharpened and driven by greatness, because in my ideal world that’s how i’d wish it to be. in this case, with mathieu in particular, i think the presence of first wout then tadej absolutely drives and consumes him to some degree. he’s a guy who admittedly gets BORED. and when mathieu gets bored he just goes and does something else. he’s very clear about the fact there are a BUNCH of things he just doesn’t really care about, and i think anyone who follows him has a sense that MVDP is here for a GOOD TIME, not a LONG TIME. my hope is that tadej’s greatness will keep mathieu focused and hungry. very sadly, wout no longer fills that role. he may again and i hope he does, but their career trajectories are going in different directions and have been for a few years now. i will be extremely sad for the truly SPECTACULAR van aert if his line MSR win is the only monument trophy on his mantle. at very least i want ONE roubaix cobblestone sitting next to it. he deserves to tell the story when the grandkids ask “why is there a big rock sitting up there, papa?”OCexile14-04-2025