One day after finishing fourth at the Tour du Finistere, young Italian sprinter Kristian Sbaragli took another top result in Bretagne when he finished 15th in the Tro-Bro Leon which is famous for its use of several gravel sectors. His MTN-Qhubeka team had lots of bad luck and are convinced that they will perform even better in this kind of race in the future.

The rain, cold weather and dirt roads got the better of most of the riders at Tro-Bro Leon today, except for Adrien Petit (Cofidis) of course. The Frenchman came away with the biggest victory of his career today by out sprinting Flavien Dassonville (BigMat – Auber 93). Cedric Pineau (FDJ.fr) came home 3rd a few seconds behind his fellow countrymen.

The race was characterised by an early 9 rider break away. The nature of the course and the consistent battle against the elements made for a tough race and also never allowed the escapees to get much of a gap. The race ended up being one of attrition with riders being eliminated one by one for one reason or another.

With 50km to go the break was brought back by the largely reduced peloton. This allowed another break to go clear 35km before the finish and would prove to be a decisive move as both Petit and Dassonville formed part of this 7 rider move. Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung rode well to have numbers present in the second half of the race, but as sports director Manel Lacambra later points out, some misfortune plagued the team today.

"Martin [Wesemann] couldn’t start today because he is still sick and Brad [Potgieter] had to stop just after the start because of an injury he is suffering from so it wasn’t the best way to start a race," he said. "We still ended up riding a good race though.

"Youcef was always in the front group but then he punctured at a bad ‎moment in a dirt road section after around 170km. At this point the front group only contained about 30 riders and we were well represented with 3 riders. Then Jaco [Venter] also punctured in another dirt road sector but he was able to come back to the group.

"Jaco and Kristian tried to get into the right moves but it was difficult against other teams who were better represented in the finale. In the end Kristian finished 15th. In a race like that, to be top 15 is a good result for us but i am certain we will do better at this race in the future now."