Jonas Vangenechten (Lotto Belisol) continued a fantastic 2014 season when he won the French semi-classic GP de Fourmies. Having been perfectly led out by his lotto Belisol teammates, the Belgian beat Tom Van Asbroek (Topsport Vlaanderen) and Elia Viviani (Cannondale) in a bunch sprint to take his third victory in around a month.

The 2014 season has been a big breakthrough for Jonas Vangenechten who recently took his first WorldTour win on stage of the Tour de Pologne and won the Druivenkoers Overijse just a few days ago. Today he continued his impressive showing when he won the French semi-classic GP de Fourmies.

After a strong trio was brought back with less than 1km to go, it all came down to the expected bunch sprint and when Lotto Belisol hit the front in the finale, most were looking for André Greipel to finish the work. However, the Belgian team had made a change of plans and when the sprint was launched, it was Vangenechten who powered clear of Tom Van Asbroeck to take the win.

The race was held on a 205km course starting and finishing in Fourmies and was a pretty hilly affair with lots of small climbs all day. In the end, the riders did five laps of a finishing circuit that included a small climb which has often served as the perfect launch pad for attacks.

After an aggressive started under beautiful sunny conditions, a four-rider group was formed. Victor Campenaerts (Topsport), Romain Pillon (Roubaix), Arman Kamyshev (Astana) and Anthony Delaplace (Bretagne) were allowed to build an advantage of almost 6 minutes before Lotto Belisol and FDJ started to control the situations.

With 85km to go, they had reduced the deficit to 3.45 and for a long time, those two teams combined forces to keep the gap around 3 minutes. With 50km to go, they crossed the finish line to start the first lap of the circuit and this was the signal for the two squads to up the pace.

With Lars Bak (Lotto Belisol) taking huge turns on the front, the gap started to come down. The first time up the climb, Delaplace attacked an only Campenaerts could match his speed.

Pillon was the first rider to get caught and at the end of the first lap, the gap was only 2.25. With 37km to go, Kamyshev was also back in the fold.

As they hit the climb for the second time, Remy Di Gregorio (La Pomme) launched an attack but FDJ and Lotto Belisol brought him back. Trek now also started to chase and the peloton was just 2 minutes behind.

The third time up the climb, Andriv Grivko (Astana) and a Colombia launched a strong attack but Bak easily shut it down. The gap was now down to less than a minute and this prompted Campenaerts to attack.

He left Delaplace behind but it was all in vain and as they hit the climb for the penultimate time, it was back together. Lots of attacks were launched and it was completely impossible for the sprint teams to control the situation.

At the start of the final lap, a rather big group with riders from most of the big team had formed but as there was no cooperation, they were brought back. Instead Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp), Sebastien Chavanel (FDJ) and Julien Simon (Cofidis) launched a very promising move that quickly gained some ground.

On the climb, Europcar launched a strong attack but Grivko set a hard pace that kept the group together. Going over the top, Trek started to chase but the escapees managed to maintain a nice advantage.

With 2.3km to go, Chavanel attacked and this spelled the end for Simon. However, Topsport had now taken over in the peloton and when they passed the red kite, it was Lotto Belisol on the front.

With 700m to go, the front duo was caught and now Marcel Sieberg was riding hard on the front. He delivered Vangenechten perfectly and he narrowly held off Van Asbroeck and Viviani in the final dash to the line.

Racing in France resumes next weekend when the riders tackle the one-day race Tour de Doubs.