Roy Curvers sprinted to 12th at the WorldTour one-day race GP Plouay, as Warren Barguil suffered from a late puncture.

For a lot of riders is the GP Ouest France-Plouay an important step on the road to next month’s World Championships, fighting for selection for their national teams. The race takes place on a rolling course and covers a total distance 229.1km, with eight laps of a 29km circuit and then a final circuit of 13.9km.

In early stages of the race four riders took the opportunity to ride in the front and formed the day’s break. With 40km to go the break was caught back by the bunch and seven riders formed a new breakaway group to try to go for the victory.

On the climb in the penultimate lap the leading split up and several riders attempted to bridge the gap. Into the final circuit Team Sky and the sprinters’ teams did the chase work, as the bunch sprint seemed inevitable. Although several attacks took place on the final climb, but without success.

Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha) won the bunch sprint and Roy Curvers took 12th.

Team Giant-Alpecin Coach Marc Reef explained: “The ultimate lap was really fast. Unfortunately, Marcel got dropped because the combination of the difficult course and the high pace turned out to be too difficult. Today’s race was a good and important step for him ahead of the races in the next weeks.

"On top of that suffered Warren from a puncture in the final climb, so we decided to go for Roy in the sprint. The last two escapees were caught in the final descent and Kristoff won the bunch sprint. Roy did a good job by finishing 12th.”