Since opinions about World Championship road race course varied from one extreme to another, most of national squads consisted of punchy climbers as well as powerful sprinters and so did the French national team, bringing Nacer Bouhanni on board. Even though the FDJ fast finisher could managed only 10th after he lacked legs to follow a move of event’s main favorites, he was pleased with a performance of his countrymen and looked forward to racing on more sprinters friendly route in Qatar.

Bouhanni finished as the second best Frenchman in the event, as Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Belisol) managed to join a late move made by the likes of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), Simon Gerrans (Orics-GreenEDGE) or Matti Breschel (Tinkoff-Saxo) and eventually took 6th place.

The 24-year old Frenchman finished third from the peloton, oversprinted by Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and another pre-race favourite – John Degenkolb (Giant-Shimano), what has given him 10th place in Sunday’s event.

Bouhanni was slightly disappointed with that result, claiming that he hasn’t trained so hard to fight for a tenth position. In the same time, the 24-year old sprinter was pleased with a progress made by the French national team.

“I can not say I missed a golden opportunity because there were five or six riders better than me on the last climb,” Bouhanni told L’Équipe.

“I hope to come back at a course for the pure sprinters, like in two years in Qatar. I trained hard for the title or a medal, not to finish 10th. With two French in the top 10, it is not ridiculous either.”