Greg Van Avermaet fine-tuned his condition for Sunday's Paris-Tours when he finished 3rd in today's Binche-Chimay-Binche after putting in a strong attack on the uphill finishing straight. Sports director Yvon Ledanois feels that a repeat of his 2011 win in the autumn classic is within reach following today's strong showing.

Greg Van Avermaet has had a fantastic season and the Belgian is going strongly all the way to the end. While many riders have already put an end to their seasons, he keeps clocking up results and added another podium place in today's Binche-Chimay-Binche where he finished 3rd.

Van Avermaet launched a strong attack with 1km to go on the uphill finishing straight but was caught a few hundred metres from the line by Reinhardt Van Rensburg (Argos-Shimano) and Bjorn Leukemans (Vacansoleil). Having ran out of power, he was unable to respond to Van Rensburg's subsequent acceleration and had to settle for the lowest step on the podium.

The strong performance comes on the back of a fantastic second half of the season that has included two stage wins and an overall win in the Tour de Wallonie, a stage win in the Tour of Utah, several top results in the USA Pro Challenge, a near-miss in the GP Ouest France-Plouay and top 4 results in both the GP Quebec and Montreal. Less than two weeks ago he rode the world championships road race and two days ago, he finished 19th in Il Lombardia.

Van Avermaet won his only big classic in the 2011 Paris-Tours. The 2013 edition of the big one-day race is coming up on Sunday and based on today's performance from Van Avermaet and his teammates, sports director Yvon Ledanois is confident that a repeat win may be in store.

"I am very satisfied with the team work today, our guys did a great job," he said. "Greg had good legs. He is very strong, but he went a little bit too early. This was the last test before Paris-Tours on Sunday. A victory should be possible."

Paris-Tours will be the final race of Van Avermaet's 2013 season.