Paul Magnier will lead the team this Sunday.
Plouay, the host of the last Road World Championships edition held on French soil, returns into the spotlight this weekend for the 89th edition of the Bretagne Classic. The penultimate European World Tour one-day race of the season puts again on the table a course that gives little respite, a route whose beauty is that it can bring into the mix both the puncheurs and the fast men capable of overcoming the many hills on the 261.7km route that starts and finishes in Plouay.
Last season, as a first-year neo-pro, Paul Magnier became the youngest rider this century to sit on the podium of the Bretagne Classics after emerging as the fastest from the peloton which finished just behind the lone attacker of the day. The Frenchman, third this month in another important one-day race – the ADAC Cyclassics in Hamburg – will return at the start and aim again to be among the protagonists.
Joining Magnier on the experienced Soudal Quick-Step squad for Sunday’s event will be Josef Cerny, Pascal Eenkhoorn – who finished tenth overall at the Deutschland Tour last weekend – Gil Gelders, Antoine Huby, former Belgian Champion Yves Lampaert, and Dries Van Gestel.
“We have a strong team for what is going to be a very hard race, one which has an elevation gain of more than 4000 meters. Paul can rely on a strong squad to support him as he’ll try to fight for another good result in Plouay. We know it won’t be easy, but we come to the start with a lot of motivation and ambition, so let’s see what we can do on Sunday”, said sports director Wilfried Peeters.
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