Marco Marcato finished second in the Classic Loire Atlantique, a tough UCI 1.1-race which is part of the Coupe de France series.
 
“I am happy because this proves that I trained well at home in the past two weeks but of course I am disappointed as well. If you ride with a fair chance to win, you want to win it in the end. However, Alexis Gougeard was the strongest today.”
 
The Classic Loire Atlantique, with start and finish in La Haye-Fouassière, a town east of Nantes, was held on a 16,8-kilometre circuit. In total eleven laps had to be ridden making a total of 184,8 kilometres on Saturday.
 
“A circuit makes it a hard race to control for the bunch," Marcato explains. "It's not like one of the big classics where the race is much more predictable. In these kind of races the decisive move can happen basically any time." 
 
A breakaway of 15 riders, including Marcato, formed in the second hour of racing already. The time gap of the group never exceeded two minutes but it did prove to be the decisive move.
 
“Our lead dropped to 30 seconds sometimes and grew to two minutes at other times. It went up and down all day and that made it a tough race. You had to ride real fast all day."

At seven kilometers from the line second-year pro Alexis Gougeard attacked. The Ag2r-la Mondiale Frenchman arrived solo with a three-second lead on Marcato. 
 
“He was the strongest. I couldn't do anything about that. However, I am content because my form is growing. This race was a good preparation for the classics of the upcoming three weeks," the Italian says.

"This is the first time I did this race. I was told that it was very hard, we would be riding full gas all day," he adds. "That wasthe case. I was already in front after 40 kilometers. All day we had 0.40-1.00 to the peloton. It was difficult. We spent a lot of energy. 

"I thought that victory was possible three kilometers from the line but Alexis Gougeard was the strongest today. He deserves his win. I tried to follow him in the finale, but with the wind I did not succeed. I was on the limit. I knew I could play my chance in the sprint because I know I'm pretty quick in this type of finish. 

"The race came after two weeks without competition as we were neither in Paris-Nice nor Tirreno-Adriatico. I lost a little rhythm but I am very happy with this result. I am optimistic for the upcoming classics."