Matthias Brändle close to success at The Val d’Ille Classic

It seems the French teams could not allow a Swiss team to get the better of them at the Val d’Ille Classic.

Without the hard work of FDJ, Europcar and AG2R-La Mondiale, Matthias Brändle from the IAM Cycling team very well could have snapped up a victory after having been in a long breakaway.

The promising 23 year old Austrian was at the head of the 185.2 kilometer race in Brittany for a total of 180 kilometers.  At the end of the day, however, the French teams brought the bunch all back together for a French victory, which current French road champion Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) obligingly gave them with a blistering sprint.

Nevertheless, as proof that the Swiss IAM Cycling team has depth in the quality of their riders, they still had Pirmin Lang sprinting to 7th place on the day, while Marcel Aregger took 16th place, after having already snagged a 15th place finish in Friday’s race.

With the start of the Circuit de la Sarthe just a day away, Directeur Sportif Rubens Bertogliati was satisfied with the performance of his troupe.

“Matthias Brändle only just missed pulling off a great victory.  He did the right thing; in races like these we have to take the initiative since we came without a pure sprinter.  Matthias responded well to this task, just as the others did on Friday.  IAM Cycling is not coming to these races merely to show up.  We want to animate them, make them exciting.”

IAM Cycling team results on this race