Arthur Vichot (FDJ) did an outstanding race in the French road race championships to deny big favourite Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) another stint in the tricolore jersey. Having joined the day's early break, the Frenchman managed to hold on when he was joined by Chavanel and Tony Gallopin (Radioshack) from behind and he still had power left to distance his companions inside the final kilometer of the race.

FDJ has won almost every one-day race in France this year and so it would be almost unnatural if the win at one of the biggest, the French national road race championships, should escape the clover team's dominance. Arthur Vichot made a splendid performance to make sure that did not happen, taking the second consecutive win at the event for his team.

Vichot did an outstanding job to hold off perennial favourite, Sylvain Chavanel, who had distanced the peloton late in the race. Having joined the day's early break, the FDJ rider was already up the road and still had enough left in the tank to take the win.

The race was held on a tough circuit in Bretagne which had a short section of the famous gravel roads known from the Breton spring race, the Tro-Bro Leon. As expected, the race evolved into one of attrition with team tactics playing their usual crucial role in a race where all the big French teams had impressive strengths in numbers, FDJ even lining up 23 riders in the event.

5km into the race, Maxime Mederel (Sojasun) and he was joined by  William Bonnet and Vichot (FDJ), Jimmy Engoulvent and Jean-Lou Paiani (Sojasun), Angelo Tulik and Sébastien Chavanel (Europcar), Steve Chainel (AG2R La Mondiale), Stéphane Pouilhès (Cofidis), Renaud Dion (Bretagne) and Alexandre Blain (Raleigh) to form an 11 rider lead group. They were allowed to build up a gap of 8 minutes before the peloton started to react.

The circuit had plenty of crosswinds section and accelerations from the main group saw the formation of a just 37-rider peloton which in just 10km reduced the gap to just 1.30. Bonnet had fallen off the pace in the front group while Ag2r used up plenty of riders to string out the peloton and with 50km to go, it appeared very unlikely that the winner would be one of the early escapees.

On a section of gravel roads inside the final 30km of the race, Vichot accelerated from the lead group, escaping on his own while Chavanel put down the hammer to further reduce the peloton. They picked up the remaining escapees and so Vichot was now the only rider in front of the peloton.

On the final lap, Chavanel once again put down the hammer, bridging the gap to Vichot and making it a front duo. Tony Gallopin sensed the danger and joined the move and the three riders cooperated well to build up a 30-second gap over the chasers which were now led by FDJ who had little confidence in Vichot's ability to deny his fresher rivals the win.

Nonetheless, Vichot was eager to surpass expectations and so he attacked inside the final kilometer while Chavanel and Gallopin were busy looking at each other. No one reacted immediately until Gallopin finally lost the poker game and started to chase.

It was, however, too late and when Chavanel accelerated with 500m to go, he was unable to catch Vichot. The FDJ rider soloed across the finish line, taking his first ever national road race title, while Chavanel finished 2nd and Gallopin 3rd.

Anthony Roux and Yoann Offredo escaped from the small peloton inside the final kilometres while Mathieu Ladagnous won the sprint for 6th, thus making it no less than 4 FDJ riders in the top 6. Arthur Vichot is expected to take his national tricolore jersey to the Tour de France as he is very likely to get selected for his team's line-up which will be announced shortly.

Result:

1. Arthur Vichot 6.04.38

2. Sylvain Chavanel

3. Tony Gallopin +0.13

4. Anthony Roux +0.30

5. Yoann Offredo +0.36

6. Mathieu Ladagnous +0.41

7. Samuel Dumoulin

8. Arnaud Gerard

9. Anthony Geslin

10. Cyril Lemoine