Coquard thrilled to win his season-opener at Etoile de Besseges

Bryan Coquard said he was delighted at starting his 2016 campaign with a stage win on the opening day of the Étoile de Bessèges in the south of France. Newly installed as the leader of the Direct Énergie team, the 23-year-old sprinter admitted: “I had a lot to prove, to show my teammates that my new status is well deserved and that they are right to believe in me.”

Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014). 

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