Eight years after his last win and after almost retiring at the end of last year, French veteran Clément Venturini managed to claim his first victory since 2018 at the Roue Tourangelle Centre Val de Loire- Groupama P.V.
A group of 18 riders got away from the bunch in the last two laps of the course, after the race definitively fell apart some 15 kilometres from the finish.
La Roue Tourangelle - as the race is generally known - took the peloton on a 201km race from Château-Renault to Tours with seven short climbs along the route.
The breakaway included Yaël Joalland (Cofidis), Declan Irvine (Novo Nordisk), Théo Delacroix (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93), Joeri Schaper (Soudal Quick-Step Devo'), Kenny Molly (Van Rysel Roubaix) and Ville Merlöv (BHS-PL Beton Bornholm).
The gap settled in a 2:30 gap at 50km into the race, and they maintained that lead into the final stages of the race, only for a move of 10 to make it across.
Given they had four riders up the front, Cofidis maintained a high space, and after Stan Van Tricht (Soudal-QuickStep Devo' Team) was brought back from a persistent late attack, the French squad left Bryan Coquard, their Frenchman, ideally placed in the final metres.
However, Coquard apparently launched his sprint from too far out, and Venturini was able to come around him for the win.
Venturini was close to retiring last year after Akkéa-B&B Hotels, his former squad, folded at the end of the year, but then he opted to continue with Unibet Rose Rockets - and at the Roue Tourangelle, his decision was rewarded in the best way possible.
"I didn't want to quit, and Unibet threw me a lifeline," he told Cyclism'Actu at the finish, "and all the way through to the finish today I was thinking of my wife and child and how much they've helped me through this hard time."
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