With the Classic Lorient Agglomération behind us and on the first day of September, it feels like the end of the season is near. The race on Saturday was very good, one of those races where the results sheet only tells half the story. There were quite a few riders in there who gave it a good show, but in the end the race still came down to a reduced sprint.
The outcome had me thinking about the old days when the event then known as the GP de Plouay was more of a race for the top 3% of the peloton. Specifically, I remember back in 2014 when Lucinda Brand won with an attack on the penultimate crossing of the finish line from a “breakaway” including Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Anna van der Breggen, Marianne Vos, Brand (all four on the same team: Rabobank), Lizzie Deignan, Emma Johansson, Elisa Longo Borghini (then riding for the small Hitec Products team), Tiffany Cromwell, Alena Amialiusik and Rossella Ratto. It was a breakaway of top-tier talent with a few youngsters who would go on to do great things.
The outcome of Saturday’s race – and the last three years when Mischa Bredewold won from a reduced group – had me thinking about how strong the peloton is these days, and that one of the punchier late-season one-days is now basically for the punchy sprinters like Balsamo and Bredewold. The last time the Classic Lorient Agglomération was won not in a reduced bunch kick was in 2022, when Mavi Garcia won from a 12-rider move that splintered in the final lap.
Abby Mickey | Senior Editor
First things first: Once upon a time, the GP de Plouay was a Classics race, continued
There was a time, not that long ago, when the punchy climbs of GP de Plouay were enough to make the race one for the Classics specialists, sometimes even the climbery types…
So, as I was saying in the intro, Elisa Balsamo taking the win might make it seem like the race wasn’t so hard. She is one of the more consistent “sprinters” in the peloton, after all. But in fact, there were some significant moves that tried to go clear throughout the race.
We had attacks from Daniek Hengeveld, Garcia, Magdeleine Vallieres, Maëva Squiban, and Célia Gery. Gery’s attack with 5.7 km to go was particularly frightening, given what the French champion has been able to accomplish this season, but ultimately came to nothing, with Visma-Lease a Bike, SD Worx-Protime, and Lidl-Trek doing a lot of work to bring things back together.
Balsamo was the best sprinter in that group, and even though Bredewold tried to get the jump on the Italian, the four-time Giro stage winner (this year) couldn’t be outsprinted.
Of course, the change in winner is also impacted by the course, which has seen some changes over the years. This year, the peloton started with a long loop before they entered the hillier final circuits. In 2020, for example, the organisers held the race on the circuits alone. That made the race more selective.
Elisa Balsamo and Lidl-Trek rode very well to win the race. They had the numbers in the group as it shrunk and were able to set the Italian up for a stunning victory. The outcome may have been different if Kim Le Court-Pienaar hadn’t crashed, but in recent years the race has also been negatively impacted by a lack of top riders lining up. Not that Balsamo, Bredewold, and Franziska Koch aren’t top riders, but if we saw Demi Vollering, Longo Borghini, and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney take the time to go to Plouay to race, the tactics would be different.
The start list was slim in places. Movistar only started four riders; Picnic-PostNL, Visma-Lease a Bike and Canyon-SRAM only started with five. We are getting to that point at the end of the season where teams are starting to feel the fatigue of travelling all over Europe, with the odd international trip. The only WorldTour race left is the Tour of Chongming Island in October, since the Simac Ladies Tour is now the Eneco Tour (relaunched) and no longer WorldTour. That race will run October 13 to 18.
Racing continues…
We’ve got a few odd one-day races coming up across Belgium and France: the Muurclassic Geraardsbergen, the Tour commence en Finistère and Pointe du Raz.
🇧🇪 Muurclassic Geraardsbergen (1.2) – Wednesday, September 2 – 110 km
🇫🇷 Tour commence en Finistère (1.1) – Saturday, September 5 – 94.1 km
(No map available) Start list here includes Ally Wollaston, Celia Gery, Maeva Squiban, Noemi Ruegg, Sarah Van Dam, and more.
🇫🇷 Pointe du Raz (1.Pro) – Sunday, September 6 – 129.5 km
The start list here includes many of the same riders listed for Tour commence en Finistère.
Wheel Talk podcast
This week we took a little break from talking about professional cycling, but don’t worry: Gracie, Georgie and I will be back next week.
Instead, we dove into my five-month-long journey to try to set a personal best time up Mont Ventoux with Phil and Lizzie Deignan, with a cameo from Ronan McLaughlin.
The written piece will be up either today or tomorrow, with example workouts and more.
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope