Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) got an important confidence boost for the World Championships when he won today’s GP d’Isbergues in a bunch sprint. After his team had controlled the race all day, he beat Michal Kolar (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Shane Archbold (Bora-Argon 18) in the final dash to the line and the win was enough to move him into the overall Coupe de France lead.

The 2015 season has been extremely unfortunate for Nacer Bouhanni who crashed out of three of his big season goals, the French championships, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana. Now his next big objective is the World Championships and today he boosted his confidence significantly.

Since abandoning the Vuelta relatively early, Bouhanni has recovered from his injuries and has already done a couple of races at the GP de Fourmies, Tour du Doubs and GP de Wallonie. Until today, a third place in the first race was his best result but today he finally returned to his winning ways in the Coupe de  France race GP d’Isbergues.

"That's a lot of good morale," he told L'Equipe. "Especially with the many crashes I have had this year. But I always kept working and I am almost in the same form as last year (where he was 10th at Worlds, ed.) Anyway, I'm physically ready."