French championship on Sunday at Herbiers
At the top of Mont des Alouettes, perched at the frightening height of 232 meters, the panoramic view encompasses the entire Vendée, its forests and its bocage. So much so that with a little imagination, one could almost believe ourselves in the mountains, somewhere in the Jura. Except that far from Alpine freshness, this 2025 France championship rather looked like an afternoon of August in the heart of Andalusia. Or at the worst version of global warming, it is. “It is clear that it was not cold,” quipped the Finistère Brieuc Rolland (Groupama-FDJ), whose first gesture on arrival was to empty the entire bottle of water on the helmet.
In the air on Sunday, the thermometer happily displayed 35 ° C in the shade. On the ground, on new bitumen, easily twenty more. In anticipation, the organizers of the event had thus reduced the race of a tour, to go from 230 to 214 kilometers and preserve, a little, the health of the actors. “At the foot of the last bump was really overheating. For me, it was the biggest difficulty in the race, ”said Paul Magnier (Sudal-Quick Step).
“Frankly, it was going”
During the departure, given at the end of the morning, almost half of the runners thus wore a refrigerant vest, just to maintain the temperature of their body at a correct level before effort. And during the race, launched from an infernal tempo – as if the heat was not enough – not all the teams deployed the means necessary to avoid cooking in muffled. “We had assistants everywhere on the side of the road. On all the laps, I had my cans, I had my ice cream. In fact, I managed the heat very well, ”said Kévin Vauquelin, unhappy third, but not bothered by the heat wave.
Thus, a large part of the runners interviewed say it. For them, the orange alert in force almost everywhere in France has not turned into a red alert. “I would not go so far as to say that the spectators were warmer than us, but frankly it was going,” even smiled the Breton Eliott Boulet (Groupama-FDJ Conti). His teammate Romain Grégoire, deprived of the title by Dorian Godon (2nd), went in his direction. “Since the beginning of June, we had hotties several times. We also prepared for training so it didn’t go too bad. If we made the effort to put ice and to water frequently, it was manageable, “he explained, before adding that he had” suffered less than in Cassel (59) “.
Far from the Dantesque edition 2023, which combined cagnard and extreme difficulty and which had only seen 23 runners crossing the line, this time there were 53, out of 145 committed, to complete this 2025 French championship.
