The 3rd race of the Coupe de France PMU 2012 took place today around the city of Cholet: Cholet-Pays de Loire. The result is completely as expected with a victory of Arnaud Démare FDJ BigMat, but the race didn't really end like we thought since ... there hasn't been a bunch sprint!

The summary of Cholet-Pays de Loire

After a presentation of the teams which was partly humid because of the rain which invited itself in the two main French races this weekend, the 3rd race of the Coupe de France PMU 2012 started in the city of Cholet at the end of this morning for a race of 170 kilometers before a first crossing of the finish line followed by a loop of 29 kilometers around the city which was elected most sportive city of France in 2007.

123 riders came to the start of the race, Mickaël Buffaz (Cofidis) didn't take the start.

The start of the race was animated with several timid attempts to form a breakaway but it was only at kilometer 35 that the breakaway of the day was formed. This breakaway contained 4 French riders who've been able to get quite some visibility today by staying ahead all day long: Alexandre Pichot for Team Europcar, Yannick Talabardon of Saur-Sojasun, the local rider Sébastien Duret (he was born in Cholet) for Bretagne-Schuller and finally Benoît Jarrier of the Véranda Rideau-Super U team.

Their gap slowly goes up until it reaches the maximum value of 5 minutes and 40 seconds while behind them, at the head of the peloton the FDJ BigMat team takes the control, preparing a potential sprint finish. To do so, the team wanted to control the race to make sure the gap didn't get too high but they didn't want to catch the breakaway too early either because that would have led to numerous new attacks after that.

While the riders got some rain, it was thus not really surprising that the gap between the 4 leading riders and the peloton was still 1'55" at the first crossing of the finish line. They still have 29 kilometers to go there and in this final loop around Cholet we see a counter attack taking form with Thomas Voeckler (Team Europcar), Martin Mortensen (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team), Julien Bérard (AG2R La Mondiale), Jonathan Hivert (Saur-Sojasun), Pieter Jacobs (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator) and Eric Berthou (Bretagne-Schuller). Even though this small group was quickly taken back, this did however give the peloton the indication to accellerate and to catch up with the 4 leading riders.

Yannick Talabardon tries to get away in a solo attack but he didn't succeed in that since he the rider of the Saur-Sojasun team was absorbed by the peloton which thus all came together again. In the 10 last kilometers, it was up to Cyril Gautier to give it a try in a solo attack but the rider of Team Europcar was also taken back.

In the last kilometers of the race, something quite incredible happened ... several favourite riders of the race get in a breakaway of 5 riders. Those riders were first of all the big favourite, Arnaud Démare (FDJ BigMat), together with his team mates Mickaël Delage and Pierrick Fédrigo, and Adrien Petit for the Cofidis team and Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun).
This breakaway rapidly creates a 15 seconds gap and finally goes on until the finish, the peloton finishing only 2 seconds behind them. In this group, Laurent Mangel was the first to launch the sprint but at about 50 meters from the finish Arnaud Démare jumps over him!

The young neo pro thus takes his 4th victory in 2012 after having participated in only 6 races. Indeed, since the start of the year, Démare already won the 6th stage of the Tour of Qatar, Le Samyn in Belgium and the 2nd stage of the Three Days of West-Flanders.

The photos of Cholet-Pays de Loire 2012

A selection of 80 photos of Cholet-Pays de Loire 2012 are now online. You can click on the following link to see them:

>> The photos of Cholet-Pays de Loire 2012

The classifications of Cholet-Pays de Loire 2012

The race classification

Here's the top 10 of Cholet-Pays de Loire 2012:

1/ Arnaud Démare (FDJ BigMat) - 5h07'20"
2/ Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun)
3/ Mickaël Delage (FDJ BigMat)
4/ Adrien Petit (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - +0'02"
5/ Pierrick Fédrigo (FDJ BigMat)
6/ Romain Feillu (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team)
7/ Jonathan Hivert (Saur-Sojasun)
8/ Francesco Lasca (Caja Rural)
9/ Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ BigMat)
10/ Guillaume Blot (Bretagne-Schuller)

The Challenge des 10 Bosses

In Cholet-Pays de Loire, the riders climb several, mostly short, climbs. 10 of them are part of a classification which is called the Challenge des 10 Bosses.

Today, Anthony Charteau (Team Europcar) was the first to get on top of the first of those climbs (the Côte du Cimetière, see photo), but the 7 following climbs all saw Benoît Jarrier (in the breakaway) getting on top first. Sébastien Duret (Bretagne-Schuller) took the points, ahead of the rider of the Véranda Rideau-Super U team, on top of the Côte de la Tessoualle and the last climb, the Côte de la Séguinière, was for Pieter Jacobs (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator) but in the end it was thus Jarrier who won this challenge.

Here's the full result of that challenge:

1/ Benoît Jarrier (Véranda Rideau-Super U) - 38 points
2/ Sébastien Duret (Bretagne-Schuller) - 26 points
3/ Anthony Charteau (Team Europcar) - 5 points
4/ Pieter Jacobs (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator) - 5 points
5/ Yannick Talabardon (Saur-Sojasun) - 4 points
6/ Alexandre Pichot (Team Europcar) - 4 points
7/ Jonathan Hivert (Saur-Sojasun) - 3 points
8/ Pierrick Fédrigo (FDJ BigMat) - 3 points
9/ Armindo Fonseca (Bretagne-Schuller) - 1 point
10/ Mickaël Delage (FDJ BigMat) - 1 point

The classification of the Coupe de France PMU

In the Coupe de France PMU 2012 we saw, after Samuel Dumoulin at the end of January in the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise and Florian Vachon yesterday in the Classic Loire Atlantique, yet another winner and he thus for now takes the lead in this classification of 16 races, with the same number of points as the other two riders. Here's the top 10 of the classification of the Coupe de France PMU 2012:

1/ Arnaud Démare (FDJ BigMat) - 50 points
2/ Florian Vachon (Bretagne-Schuller) - 50 points
3/ Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - 50 points
4/ Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun) - 35 points
5/ Romain Feillu (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - 34 points
6/ Mickaël Delage (FDJ BigMat) - 25 points
7/ Arthur Vichot (FDJ BigMat) - 25 points
8/ Romain Hardy (Bretagne-Schuller) - 22 points
9/ Adrien Petit (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - 20 points
10/ Jérémie Galland (Saur-Sojasun) - 20 points

The next race on the calender of the Coupe de France PMU 2012 is the Route Adélie de Vitré on Friday 30 March.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Cholet-Pays de Loire | Coupe de France

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