Eduardo Sepulveda (Bretagne) confirmed his huge potential when he took his first professional victory at the Classic Sud-Ardeche. The Argentinean made it into a strong group, bridged across to lone attacker Julien Loubet (Marseille) and finally made a late acceleration to open his account in one of the hardest French one-day races.

In the early part of the 2014 season, Eduardo Sepulveda delivered several impressive results that made people wonder how far he could get in his debut Tour de France. However, the Argentinean was set back by injury that saw him miss La Grande Boucle and as he crashed later in the year at the Worlds, he never managed to build on his promising start.

With a fourth place in the Tour de San Luis, he has had an equally good start to his 2015 season but until today, his first professional win had always eluded. Today he finally broke the drought when he won the tough French one-day race Classic Sud-Ardeche.

"When I attacked, there was still fifteen kilometers to go," he told Directvelo. "I was afraid of not being able to go to the end because there were still a lot of riders in the chase group. But I had to try something. I knew I would not have much luck in the sprint in a group of 15-20 riders. I anticipated. 

"I managed to catch Julien Loubet before the last climb. Behind, they were unable to close the gap. When I was chasing, I gave 85%. I did not want to give my all if I was going to get caught. In the final 4km I gave everything when I was told I had 23 seconds. I could no longer make any calculations. 

"In the last kilometer I felt Loubet was not great. I wanted to make a difference before the last corner. I did not want to risk bringing him to sprint because you never know what can happen in the finishing straight. 

"Today I was able to enjoy my good form. When I returned from Argentina, I got sick at the Etoile de Bessèges. Then I wanted to compete at the World Championships on the track to carry the colors of Argentina. It was probably not the best way to prepare for future road races, but I wanted to go. 

"The big goal in the early part of the season will be Paris-Nice. Then I will do  the Tour of Catalonia or the Criterium International. I also keep an eye on the Tour de France. Doing the Tour is a dream."

"We had planned to protect Eduardo (Sepulveda), Pierrick (Fedrigo) and Jonathan (Hivert) for the finale," sports director Roger Trehin told Directvelo." In the end, it was Eduardo who was on the attack. I was afraid because Julien Loubet increased his advantage. But we could see that Eduardo looked stronger than Julien Loubet. Then I said that if Eduardo came back, he was going to be stronger than Loubet in the sprint. And he took advantage of the dangerous finale.

"This is our fourth win of the season, it's important to win early to relax the team for the rest of the season . We had not yet won in Europe. I hope it will be a trigger for Eduardo for him to win two or three races this year. He was often very close to victory without success.He did not win. I don't hide that he is our leader for stage races alongside Pierrick and Jonathan."