Bryan Coquard proved that he is not just a pure sprinter when he won today's very hard French one-day race, Paris-Camembert. To prove his versatility, he will skip Thursday's sprint race GP de Denain to gain experience in the Ardennes classics.

Bryan Coquard got his season off to an excellent start when he won two stages of the Etoile de Besseges in early February but then started to struggle a bit. After failing to feature prominently in his first big goal of the season, Paris-Nice, however, he has now started to get the ball rolling again.

Coquard may be mostly known as a sprinter but the tiny Frenchman is actually a very versatile rider who overcomes even rather tough climbs. He put that ability to good use less than two weeks ago when he won the hilly one-day race Route Adelie Vitre and today he again put his skills on show when he won the even harder race, Paris-Camembert.

With two wins in the Coupe de France, he now enjoys a comfortable lead in the season-long series, sitting on 100 points while second placed Julien Simon (Cofidis) har only accumulated 57. The next round comes up on Thursday with the GP de Denain which usually ends in a bunch sprint and so it seemed to be an obvious choice for Coquard to continue his racing in that event.

However, the Europcar rider has stated his intention to become a more versatile rider and has done nothing to hide his intentions to target the Ardennes classics in the future. Hence, he will skips the next rounds of his home series to focus on his future by riding the bigger classics in the North.