The steep final climbs and more than 6 hours of racing took their toll on Hugo Houle’s (Israel – Premier Tech) legs on Sunday at the Classique Bretagne – Ouest-France, a one-day World Tour cycling race that started and finished in Plouay.
His teammates Mads Würtz Schmidt and Krists Neilands finished 14th respectively.e and 15e in the main group who could not join the Swiss Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) who won after 260 kilometers of racing where Houle ranked 64the (+44 s) and Guillaume Boivin (Israel – Premier Tech) 80e (+4 min 38 s).
Attacks came thick and fast on the final lap, notably from Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step), but it was ultimately his future teammate at Tudor next year, Marc Hirschi, who made the right move, 3.5 kilometres from the end. The Swiss escaped on a steep climb and was able to maintain his cushion of around ten seconds on the final circuit punctuated by several narrow roads that were anything but flat.
“I put the guys in the penultimate climb and after that, I started to feel a bit limited, being on the verge of cramping. And on the last climb, when Marc Hirschi attacked, I lacked a bit of strength to follow,” Houle admitted in an interview with Sportcom after the race.
” He [Hirschi] was still quite strong on this climb which was short, steep and explosive, but he still had to do the last three kilometers with a lot of people chasing behind. So he was very, very strong to resist the peloton. […] Jake Stewart was our leader today [dimanche]but unfortunately he too was a bit affected by cramps, so he couldn’t do a good sprint.”
Hugo Houle will take a break from competitions before returning to the country to participate in the Grands Prix cyclistes de Québec and Montréal on September 13 and 15.
Lidl Domination – Trek at the Tour of Germany
In the fourth and final stage of the Tour of Germany, Nickolas Zukowsky (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) crossed the finish line in 92e place in a group which was just under 8 minutes behind the winner, the Dane Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) who sealed his victory in the general classification.
The cyclist from Sainte-Lucie-des-Laurentides finishes at 74e rank (+14 min 27 s) of the final general classification at the end of this 183 kilometer day between Annweiler am Trifels and Saarbrücken.
The Lidl-Trek team dominated all stages of the Tour: Jonathan Milan won the prologue and the first and third stages, while Pedersen was also the fastest in the second stage.