Paris-Tours 2012 didn't end in a sprint, the final breakaway continued till the end! And in this breakaway, one rider was looking for revenge, Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team), who finished second behind Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team) last year. The Italian rider won the race this afternoon in the Avenue de Grammont in Tours with the second* fastest average speed in the history of Paris-Tours!

The summary of Paris-Tours 2012

This morning at the start of Paris-Tours 2012 in Châteauneuf-en-Thymerais, the sun was having some difficulties getting through the clouds and the riders thus started under a grey sky but with dry weather in this 106th edition of Paris-Tours.

The race kept this type of weather during the whole day and with the wind coming mainly from the back, the peloton left at high speed. Despite this speed, a group of 11 riders progressively managed to get away from the peloton: Sylvain Chavanel and Jérôme Pineau (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Wilco Kelderman (Rabobank), Karsten Kroon and Michael Morkov (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank), Koen de Kort (Argos-Shimano), Michael Hepburn (Orica-GreenEDGE), Yannick Talabardon (Saur-Sojasun), Gatis Smukulis (Katusha Team), Laszlo Bodrogi (Team Type 1-Sanofi) and Arnaud Gérard (FDJ-BigMat).

These riders rapidly created quite a gap, up to 4 minutes 30. Thanks to the high speed (50.4 kilometers in the first hour and 48.7 on average in the first three hours), this group stayed ahead during almost the whole race. At about 75 kilometers from the finish, the gap stabilised around 2 minutes and at that time the whole BMC Racing Team were leading the peloton, together with some riders of the Cofidis team, chasing behind them.

At about 50 kilometers from the finish, the leading group started to lose some elements to end up with only one rider in front, Michael Morkov. Juan Antonio Flecha (Team Sky) was the first rider to join him from the peloton, followed by Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Laurens de Vreese (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Laurent Pichon (Bretagne-Schuller), Sébastien Turgot (Team Europcar), Roy Curvers (Argos-Shimano) and Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team).

They were thus 8 to start climbing the 3 hills in the final part of this Paris-Tours and in the Côte de Beau Soleil, 3 of them managed to get away and Niki Terpstra, Laurens de Vreese and Marco Marcato than even managed to extend the gap on the peloton. Several riders attacked, chasing these three leading riders, including mainly Adam Blythe (BMC Racing Team), but also John Degenkolb (Argos-Shimano). The German rider, who probably had hoped for a sprint finish, wanted to show he was strong enough to ... almost catch back these three leading riders!

Indeed, when these three leading riders started watching each other waiting for the first to launch the sprint for victory in the Avenue de Grammont in Tours, the German rider dangerously approached the three riders who were already thinking of victory, but despite that, the battle for the sprint finally took place in this leading group anyway. In this game, it was finally the Italian rider Marco Marcato of the Dutch Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team who took the victory in Paris-Tours 2012! It was clear that he really wanted this victory, after his second place behind Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team) last year. The Belgian rider ended at the 6th place this year, behind Degenkolb who thus took the 4th place and Laurent Pichon (Bretagne-Schuller) who ended 5th

The result of Paris-Tours 2012

Here's the top 10 of Paris-Tours 2012:

1/ Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) - 4h50'34"
2/ Laurens de Vreese (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator)
3/ Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)
4/ John Degenkolb (Argos-Shimano) - +0'06"
5/ Laurent Pichon (Bretagne-Schuller) - +0'12"
6/ Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team)
7/ Björn Leukemans (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team)
8/ Jonathan Hivert (Saur-Sojasun) - +0'19"
9/ Jens Keukeleire (Orica-GreenEDGE)
10/ Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)

The photos of Paris-Tours 2012

You can find the complete selection of 94 photos of Paris-Tours 2012 in the dedicated photo section.

* Finally it turns out to be the highest average speed ever in this race. Indeed, in 1997 Andrei Tchmil was said to be faster by doing the 256 km of the race with an average speed of 48.929 km/h but after verification it turned out that the race route was 7 km shorter than indicated in the race's roadbook. This information has however not been corrected in the roadbook for Paris-Tours 2012.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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