As 12 riders sprinted toward the finish line of the Faun Ardèche Classic in Guilherand-Granges, the leading trio, having just accelerated at the front, mistakenly took a wrong turn at the final roundabout and veered off course. In the ensuing chaos, at least two other riders crashed, while behind them, Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) stayed on the correct path and powered through to claim victory.
In what seemed to be déjà vu, after the chaotic opening stage of the Volta ao Algarve two weeks ago, where a large segment of the peloton mistakenly headed up the wrong side of the finishing straight.
But in the French race the conditions were slightly different. The riders had already taken the roundabout twice before as they raced on a circuit, however on the final time around, the lead motorcycles took the deviation to the right and Javier Romo (Movistar) followed them with his teammate Enric Mas and Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) on his wheel. The trio quickly noticed their error, and hit the brakes but it was too late.
Also in the lead group, Marc Hirschi (Tudor) and Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirate-XRG) were caught in the chaos and lost their chance to battle for the win.
Grégoire, who had taken the wrong turn in Algarve, was sitting at the back of the group, taking a short breather in preparation for the expected small group sprint, avoided the melée and went straight.
"They turned right at 350 meters to go when we had already crossed the line three times," Grégoire said. "I think they were a little lacking in lucidity. Fortunately, I was vigilant. I knew it was straight ahead.”
"Honestly, I was at full speed with my heart rate, I followed my teammate Javier [Romo], the motorcycle was close and we followed it without any hesitation,” Mas told L’Equipe. “When we turned and I saw the cars, I said to myself 'ah, we made a mistake’."
Ayuso took the win last year ahead of Grégoire and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) on the same course. All three were part of the front group this year.
Race organizer Guillaume Delpech expressed his disappointment in a statement to WielerFlits.
“We passed here three times during this race. The first two times, the riders also went straight on the roundabout. There was no doubt that things could go wrong here, but perhaps because of the intensity and effort, they no longer had a clear picture of the course.”
"Did we as an organization make a mistake? Maybe, but the riders also made a mistake. For someone like Enric Mas it was his first participation here, but every year the course here is the same. And we are also going to use the same finish during the European Cycling Championships in October. We are not going to change that,” he told WielerFlits.
The 2025 European Cycling Championships will take place October 1 - 5 in the Drôme-Ardèche region of France.
