Bryan Coquard broke an almost two-month winless drought when he won today's Route Adelié de Vitré when he made it into a 28-rider group on the tough course before using his superior sprint to hold off Julien Simon. The young Frenchman was pleased to finally find back to his winning ways and was happy to have been part of the aggression in the tough race.

Bryan Coquard got his season off to an excellent start when he used his great sprint and solid climbing skills to win two tough stages at the Etoile de Besseges in the beginning of February. Since then, however, it has been a case of near-misses for the fast Frenchman who failed to reach his goal of winning a Paris-Nice stage.

After returning back to France after an attempt to achieve success in the cobbled classics, Cocquard found back to his winning ways when he won today's round of the Coupe de France race series. The race is a rather hilly affair and so the Europcar rider had to make use of much more than his sprinting prowess to come away with the win.

In fact, Coquard showed that he is much more than just a sprinter as he was one of the instigators that created the 28-rider group that went on to decide the race. His team showed impressive strength by placing five riders in the group and he counted on his teammates to bring back a dangerous late move from Samuel Dumoulin before unleashing his excellent sprint.

"For a long time I did not win anything," he told Directvelo. "At the briefing, I said that I wanted to win but we also wanted to give a chance to other riders. It was a race that I liked. I even found myself in group of 7-8 riders several times.

"In the last kilometre, I was on Kevin Reza's wheel. Yukiya Arashiro did a great job to catch Dumoulin. Belletti launched the sprint from afar and that was ideal for me. "
 

Coquard is building condition for his big goal which is a debut at the Tour de France this summer.