France will line-up with versatile team at the World Championships road race, held on September 28 in Ponferrada, ready to contest a bunch sprint with Bouhanni as well as decide the race from a breakaway with riders like Tony Gallopin, Romain Bardet or Sylvain Chavanel.

French national coach Bernard Bourreau has announced the final selection for upcoming World Championships, consisting of sprinters, explosive climbers and classics specialists.

Instead of deciding their strategy beforehand, Bourreau decided to leave all possibilities open. As expected, despite his latest conflict with the FDJ manager Marc Madiot which effectively hindered his final preparations, Nacer Bouhanni will line up as the fastest man in the nine-rider French roster, joined by his trusted lead-out man Geoffrey Soupe.

Even though the route in Ponferrada, tailor made for classics specialists, is told to be too demanding for pure sprinters, Bouhanni has proved recently that he is capable of surviving climbs in a leading group. Teams like Australia and Germany will do their best to ensure that the race will be decided in a bunch sprint and in such circumstances, on a good day, the 24-year old Frenchman might be the best card to play against Simon Gerrans and John Degenkolb.

A versatile French squad it perfectly adjustable to all possible scenarios, though, and in-form Tony Gallopin will be their man to join a breakaway with other classics specialists while climbers like Romain Bardet, Warren Barguil or Jean-Christophe Peraud will make sure that they will still stay in contention when other team decide to make the race really tough.

French team for elite men’s road race: 

Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale), Warren Barguil (Giant-Shimano), Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ.fr), Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling), Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Belisol), Cyril Gautier (Europcar), Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R-La Mondiale), Kevin Reza (Europcar), Geoffrey Soupe (FDJ.fr)

Elite men’s time trial: Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling), Jérôme Coppel (Cofidis).