"Honestly I thought we would make it to the finish. We had six other guys from 35km and a big desire to beat the sprinters."

Those were the words of Astana's Alexey Lutsenko after the French one-day World Tour GP Plouay. Lutsenko escaped into a strong breakaway in the final hour of racing on a windy but warm day in the Morbihan department of France's cycling-mad Bretagne.

With six other riders and just 35km to the finish, Lutsenko began to eliminate his fellow escapees with a series of small attacks, first on an easy and gentle grade, later on a steeper but completely straight climb, until there were three and then just two riders left with him with less than 10km to go. Lutsenko pushed on until a second wave of attackers joined his small group, and held with them as the sprinters' teams awakened to realize they could come to the line at full speed.

First Andrei Grivko tried to attack the confusion around the reassembled peloton, but in the end Alexander Kristoff of Norway sprinted to victory ahead of more than 40 riders.

Lutsenko next races in Canada at two World Tour one-day races in Quebec City and Montreal. The U23 World Champion will race in Richmond for Kazakhstan.