Corbas Lyon Métropole: “They rode a great bike” – News
At the end of a perfectly controlled race, the Corbas Lyon Métropole club won the Prix de la Saint-Laurent on Tuesday, the scene of the third round of the Coupe de France N2, through the intermediary of the former professional Adrien Guillonnet (see ranking). Present in a breakaway earlier in the race, Antoine Grand meanwhile took 5th place and allowed his club to garner other valuable points. The orange-and-black thus take the lead in the Coupe de France. DirectBike a reporter of the reaction of the team’s sports director, Denis Repérant, at the end of the race.
DirectVelo: The team was omnipresent throughout the event!
Denis Repérant: We said you shouldn’t look at the standings but really run to win. The idea was to be in all the breakaways. We needed a strong man up front if a dozen riders came out. Given the difficulty of the course and the classification of the Coupe de France, I thought it was possible that it could be seen at the back, so it was important to have a strong guy from us up front fairly quickly. Antoine (Grand) found himself at the front and he was still 5th at the finish, which confirms that he was going really well. And the proof that we should not miss this shot.
Then we saw other runners from the collective stand out by relaunching the race…
Each in turn, our guys went there, in all the counter-attacks. We even found ourselves at four in the first against. They waited for each other, they rode a good bike and then we were able to put our best card, Adrien (Guillonnet), up front in the final. He did the special for us, which was to get out of the group just as everyone was crashing. He had to trust. I know that seeing the team’s performance motivated him and made him want to surpass himself. It’s the same for us, the staff. When everyone is going in the same direction, it makes you want to redouble your efforts even more.
“SUR MAY TAKE WATER”
So it was the perfect race!
I don’t know if we can speak of a perfect course. I still had a heatstroke along the way. Asbjorn (Madsstuen) has not been in good form at the moment, for a month. Eliot (Pauchard) made a big comeback up front but paid for it straight away (they both gave up, editor’s note). So we can always do better but on the other hand, when we do 1 and 5, it’s hard to say that it wasn’t perfect (smile).
This is the club at the head of the Coupe de France N2!
It’s good, it’s still an objective, even if we may take the water on the last round and we’re not at all sure to win it. I’d rather win a heat than do 2 or 3 in all the heats and win the overall. But it sure is good, having already won the time trial. Now, we’re going to go there with ambition, that’s for sure, but without pressure. We get to race, like today (Tuesday). Either way, it’s better to be hunted than to be the hunter.
“ON IRA TO WIN”
Is the objective now to win this Coupe de France?
We were 29 points behind before the round. I thought it would be difficult to catch up today but it’s done. Now you have to control. We will have to run to win the last round if we want to win the Coupe de France. And if it doesn’t work out, then we won’t have any regrets. We will see what will happen in three weeks, but we must not make it an extra weight. We will go to win, like every weekend, even if we haven’t won much and we are still an N2 under construction. Winning the Coupe de France would be the icing on the cake.
You joined this project last winter and you quickly brought a lot to this group…
Personally, it’s true that I wasn’t in the best period of my life a year ago. Today, it smiles. But I’m just doing my job. I’m here to grease the wheels, like the staff and the volunteers. I am only one member among others. It is the runners who pedal. It’s much easier in the car (smile). But it’s working for runners at the moment and that’s the most important thing.