Arnaud Demare of FDJ retained his title of the GP d’Isbergues today by beating Yauheni Hutarovich and Heinrich Haussler in a bunch sprint.

At the start of the race, there were plenty of early attacks but Europcar controlled the peloton well and were careful not to let any moves go. Eventually, an attack stuck that contained Renault (BigMat-Auber 93), Petit (Cofidis), Gautier, Pichot (Europcar), J. Goncalves (La Pomme Marseille 13), J. Turgis (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) and Skjerping (Team Joker). Gaint-Shimano’s Simon Geschke and Veranclassic’s Ottema made the bridge a few minutes later.

After a fast start, things showed no sign of slowing down and there were crashes involving Evgeny Petrov, Maxime Vantomme, Matteo Pelucchi, Alexandre Geniez and Bruan Coquard, who all abandoned. Meanwhile Rick Ottema had fallen off the break’s pace and Adrien Petit had attacked out of it.

Petit gained little time and was eventually recaptured while Ottema returned to the bunch before being spat out and then abandoning. The break continued to attack and splinter an by the first passage of the finish line, only Renault (BigMat-Auber 93), Petit (Cofidis), Gautier, Pichot (Europcar), Skjerping (Team Joker) and Geschke (Giant-Shimano) remained out front. IAM and Topsport-Vlaanderen were intent on brining the move back and when the bunch passed the line, they were only 40 seconds down with 10km to go.

Petit and Gautier attacked just as they were caught but the move was useless as they were brought back. This served as a chance for BigMat’s Steven Tronet to attack with 6km to go but he barely got a gap. 

With 4km to go Nikolay Trusov (Tinkoff-Saxo) and IAM’s Sebastian Hinault tried an attack but they were recaptured just after the flamme rouge.

This paved the way for FDJ to leadout Demare and once he hit the front, no one was passing him and Hutarovich had to settle for second ahead of Haussler.