Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) continued his fantastic 2013 season when he won one of the most important French classics, Tour de Vendee, in a bunch sprint. He beat Samuel Dumoulin (Ag2r) and Steven Tronet (BigMat) in the final dash to the line while the runner-up spot for Dumoulin was enough for him to win the 2013 Coupe de France overall.

Nacer Bouhanni has had a highly successful 2013 season and today he continued his impressive autumn showing when he won the important French sprint classic, Tour de Vendee. The win comes less than a month after his win in another big French race, GP de Fourmies.

Bouhanni made his FDJ team work hard to neutralize a three-rider group that at one point had a gap of 7.30 and the team continued their effort when last year's winner Wesley Kreder (Vacansoleil) and Julian Kern (Ag2r) made a dangerous attack with 6km to go. The blue-clad riders managed to set up the desired bunch sprint and Bouhanni didn't disappoint, holding off Samuel Dumoulin and Steven Tronet in the dash for the line.

The race also marked the end of the prestigious Coupe de France race series in which all was set for an exciting battle between Dumoulin, Bryan Coquard (Europcar) and Anthony Geslin (FDJ). Today's 2nd place was enough for Dumoulin to take the win ahead of Coquard while FDJ crowned a dominant season on French soil by winning the teams classification.

Many of today's riders will stay in France for the final two big French races of the season, Thursday's Paris-Bourges and Sunday's Paris-Tours which is the final major European classic. However, Bouhanni won't be present in those races as the Frenchman plans to ride the Tour of Beijing from Friday to Tuesday.

A flat course

The 202,6km French classic was held on mostly flat roads in Vendee and finished with 3 laps on a 3,9km finishing circuit. The race is often decided in a sprint but escapees have managed to surprise the sprinters several times in the past.

The race was off to an extremely fast start with several attacks being launched in the early part of the race. Ag2r took control of things from the beginning and it was their Julien Berard who got the first slight gap after 21km. However, the Frenchman was brought back after a short while.

More attacks

A little later, 7 riders got clear but their move was also neutralized. Next to try was Franck Vermeulen (Roubaix) but he had no more success than the first attackers.

The peloton covered 48,7km during the first hour and at that point, no break had been allowed to go clear. Finally, the elastic snapped when Francesco Reda (Androni), Pierre-Luc Perrichon (Bretagne) and Pavel Kochetkov (Rusvelo) got clear and build up a 40-second gap.

A big gap opens up

Sojasun and BigMat had missed the move and so the two teams tried to bring things back together. They failed in their mission and so the group was allowed to open up a 7-minute gap.

The advantage stayed around that mark for most of the day while the peloton was content to let them stay away. When they got closer to the finish, the chase kicked off in earnest and the gap started to come down. With 45km to go, the three escapees were 4.10 ahead and the peloton had things firmly under control.

FDJ in control

With 25km to go, the advantage was only 1 minute and with 10km to go, the group was caught. FDJ was now setting a fierce pace in an attempt to set up a sprint win for Bouhanni.

Roubaix Lille Metropole were the next to take control but soon after, last year's winner Wesley Kreder (Vacansoleil) tried an attack. Julian Kern (Ag2r) bridged across and those two riders passed the line for the penultimate time with a slight gap over the peloton which was now led by Europcar who had Bryan Coquard as a winner candidate.

With 3km to go, FDJ replaced Europcar on the front, and the French team made sure that Kern and Kreder were caught inside the final 2km of the race. All was now set for a bog bunch sprint between some of the best French sprinters. Bouhanni didn't disappoint and finished off perfect teamwork, thus taking his 9th win of a very successful season.

Result:

1. Nacer Bouhanni 4.37.52

2. Samuel Dumoulin

3. Steven Tronet

4. Laurent Pichon

5. Michael Van Staeyen

6. Bryan Coquard

7. Yannick Martinez

8. Julien Simon

9. Alessandro Malaguti

10. Romain Feillu