For its 50th anniversary, the Solitaire Urgo Le Figaro is offering itself an anthology edition. Each stage has its share of surprises in store and this 3rd stage was no exception. This morning, Anthony Marchand (Groupe Royer-Secours Populaire), Gildas Mahé (Breizh Cola-Equi'Thé) and Alexis Loison (Région Normandie) crossed the line at around 9 a. m. with a lead of nearly 8 hours over their competitors.
It was not until 5:20 p.m. that their pursuers arrived in Roscoff, in order Martin Le Pape, Michel Desjoyeaux, Corentin Douguet, Adrien Hardy, Tom Dolan, Will Harris and Benjamin Schwartz, the first newcomer. Thus, the fourth, Martin Le Pape (Skipper Macif 2017), arrived 7 hours 50 minutes and 50 seconds after the winner, Anthony Marchand. Yoann Richomme took 13th place, keeping his lead in the overall standings.
"I've never seen anything like this happen at any stage." confided Michel Desjoyeaux (Lumibird), 5th in the stage, while Corentin Douguet (NF Habitat), who arrived just behind him, added : "It's pretty amazing, I've never seen such crazy steps with such gaps."
And indeed, these significant gaps have totally redistributed the cards of the overall ranking. The winning trio is back in the game after thinking they had lost everything in the overall on the first stage. It was when they arrived at the port at 7pm that the podium of the stage discovered the new classification.
"It's completely unlikely, 1:26 hours behind Yoann and almost an hour ahead of Alexis, it's crazy, it's great" Gildas Mahé, who moved from 17th overall to Yoann Richomme's dolphin, was delighted. " It's what we call a lift, it's more a place I was aiming for when I left Nantes, it's definitely nice to see my name again in front of it" said Alexis Loison (Normandy Region), now on the podium, at 2:22 am from the skipper of HelloWork Telegram Group.
Gildas Mahé and Anthony Marchand
The latter, 13th in the stage at 8 hours and 47 minutes behind the winner Anthony Marchand, finally managed to maintain his leadership position, but admitted to shaking: "I thought it was dead, I had to have been through all the states a little bit, because missing the passage from Alderney to 200 metres was a little hard. As Fabien said (Delahaye, 12th of the stage), it's like seeing the plane take off while you're at the gate. Now, 1 h 26 in advance, I have no right to complain, it's more than what many people had before the last stage starts, it's a huge luxury, I'm happy despite the bitter taste of this stage, it's an operation that remains correct."
