National Championships 2023 – France 🇫🇷 – Road Race [FULL RACE]

June 25, 2023

National Championships 2023 – France 🇫🇷 – Road Race – Hazebrouck – Cassel : 224 km

The French National Championships are one of the biggest targets of the year for home riders, win here and they’ll earn the right to wear the coveted French tricolore for an entire year. This iconic red, white and blue jersey is one of the most recognisable jerseys in the sport of cycling and has seen several of the sport’s most legendary riders carry it on their shoulders.

Valentin Madouas overcame intense heat and a series of tough climbs in northern France to claim a dramatic solo victory in his country’s Road Championships.

Madouas attacked 21 kilometres from the line and stayed away to the finish, claiming the win ahead of Groupama-FDJ teammate Rudy Molard by nearly two minutes. Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo), a further 12 seconds down, took the bronze.

While Madouas, second in Strade Bianche and fifth this year in Liège, notched up his team’s ninth Nationals title, and Groupama-FDJ placed three riders in the top ten after Thibaut Pinot came home in seventh, leading favourite Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) abandoned, sick.

Summing up one of the toughest French National Championships of recent years, featuring over 4,100 metres of vertical climbing, Madouas, 26, made a point of thanking the Groupama-FDJ staff and teammates for their contribution to his success.

“It’s me who’ll wear the jersey for a whole year,” Madouas said, “but it’s really thanks to all of them. Everybody did an amazing job.”

“It was a really tough course, but I’ve never raced in front of so many people, either, it was something extraordinary. I’ve been dreaming of this result for years. I told my family ‘come and watch, I’ve got a feeling something good’s going to happen. And I was right.”

How it unfolded
On a 15 lap course with two key climbs, Groupama-FDJ began toughening up the race from very early on, making the most of their 18 riders present on the startline.

The French squad placed eight riders in a group of 22, including David Gaudu, Madouas and Pinot. Other favourites like Alaphilippe began to struggle in the main peloton, and the Soudal-QuickStep leader was eventually dropped with 105 kilometres to go and then abandoned.

Numerous attacks followed in the second half of the course, but none stuck until Gaudu made a decisive move with around 30 kilometres to go. Initially only Madouas could follow, but then Molard came across and it briefly looked as if Groupama-FDJ would have a clean sweep of the podium.

Instead, Gaudu unexpectedly cracked, and then after attacking alone and dropping Molard a couple of kilometres later, Madouas was able to stay away. Not even a dropped chain mid-way through his lone effort, could stop him from winning and going two spots better in the Nationals than his father, Laurent, formerly a pro, whose best ever result in the Championships was a bronze back in 1995.

“The plan was to toughen up the race as soon as possible,” Madouas said. “I always had a bit extra left in the tank, I could calculate my strength. There were three hours left to race and everybody was already dead. We did a really good race.”

Results :