One week after taking the Classic Loire Atlantique, Bretagne Schuller rider Florian Vachon today grabbed the opening stage of the Criterium International in Corsica.
The Frenchman was quickest in a big sprint to the line in Porto Vecchio, taking the win in front of Danilo Wyss (BMC Racing Team), Clément Koretzky (La Pomme Marseille), Simon Geschke (1t4i) and 35 others.
Five-time race winner Jens Voigt was ninth, just ahead of RadioShack Nissan team-mates Linus Gerdemann and Maxime Monfort.
Defending champion Frank Schleck, also part of the Luxembourg team, was fourteenth, one place ahead of 2011 Tour de France winner Cadel Evans and two in front of his BMC Racing team-mate Marco Pinotti.
Voigt is determined to try to win the race again and was part of a move which eliminated several pre-race favourites. “After the downhill of the Côte de Conca, I saw we had five guys in the front,” he said. “I thought ‘let’s join the Sky Team and ride a little bit together with them’, trying to split up the peloton in the crosswind. That worked pretty well.
“With Fränk Schleck, Linus Gerdemann, Maxime Monfort, Nelson Oliveira and myself we had five guys in the front. We never got more than 30 seconds due to the fact that Garmin was chasing hard. They have a bunch of good riders. When they work hard, they can keep it very close, but not close enough.”
One of those who lost time and finished in a group 49 seconds back was Dave Zabriskie (Garmin Barracuda). He will be one of the favourites for this afternoon’s 6.5 kilometre time trial but, even if he wins, is no longer in the running for the race leader’s yellow jersey.
Team-mate Christope Le Mevel also lost out, as did Ag2r La Mondiale’s John Gadret, Romain Sicard (Euskaltel Euskadi), Pierre Rolland plus his Europcar team-mate Christophe Kern.
Voigt was pleased by what their move achieved. “For me Zabriskie is one of the favorites for the overall and he is an awesome time trial rider,” he said. “If he would have been with us till the end of this stage, it would have been hard to beat him. Now we have already a bit of an advantage. That’s why we tried to make it happen. Mission accomplished.”
Trio slip clear early on:
Being such a short stage, it was certain that the riders would take an aggressive approach to things. Just seven kilometres after the start, three clipped away. Julien Berard (Ag2r La Mondiale), David Le Lay (Saur Sojasun) and 21-year-old Grégoire Tarride (La Pomme Marseille) established a lead of 40 seconds nine kilometres of collaboration, and reached a maximum of two minutes by kilometre 23.
Berard picked up top mountains points at the Côte de Conca (km 46), pipping Tarride and Le Lay. The peloton was just fifty seconds back at this point and closing. Berard kicked clear alone but was reeled in at kilometre 58, five kilometres after the other two were caught.
This recapture coincided with the move by the Sky and RadioShack riders to break up the peloton. It was a successful effort, and ensured that a reduced peloton fought it out for the victory in Porto Vecchio. Of that group, several riders were delayed by a crash inside the final three kilometres.
One of those was Garmin-Barracuda’s Nathan Haas, who said afterwards that he felt he was in the running for a stage win until hitting the deck with approximately 200 metres to go. Fortunately he is not badly hurt, and will continue.
The race continues this afternoon with the time trial, then concludes with what will be a decisive uphill finish tomorrow.