![Jason Ansard and Loïc Forestier, the extreme runners at the Coulanges-lès-Nevers semi-night event [classement]](https://euro.dayfr.com/content/uploads/2024/06/30/bc73ba1795.jpg)
In a semi-nocturnal race partly contested in pouring rain and lightning, Jason Ansard (Guidon Chalettois) got the better of Nivernais Loïc Forestier (Team Atria-Montluçon) to claim his first victory of the season in a sprint on Saturday June 29.
It was definitely not weather to put a runner outside on Saturday, June 29, 2024, in Coulanges-lès-Nevers. The weather conditions were terrible at 7:30 p.m., when the sixth edition of the Prix du Bar Le Coulanges was launched.
The heavy rain falling on Nevers since the beginning of the afternoon soaked the roads with water; the storm was brewing, some lightning flashed in the sky. And the downpours continued to fall, by the hectoliters.
Loïc Forestier: “I’m happy, as if I had won”
Whatever. The peloton has had others, especially this year. The race was maintained, and it is not Loïc Forestier who will complain about it. On this 3 km circuit to be covered 25 times, the 34-year-old from Nivernais, road captain of Team Atria-Montluçon, had a lot of fun, coming very close to the grand slam on the bonuses, not leaving a crumb to his opponents , or almost. He was in the good breakaway of six riders, then nine, starting 20 laps from the finish, where we found in particular Hugo Laroche (Guidon Chalettois). And Loïc Forestier was the only one to follow Ansard’s sharp attack, in a bump, two laps from the finish.
premium Loïc Forestier tried it on the first stage of the Tour Nivernais Morvan
It was a sprint between two “friends”, teammates at Guidon Chalettois last year, which the fifty or so spectators witnessed. Friends in life, but not on the bike. They didn’t give each other any gifts. “I knew I had to come out behind him at the bend (200 m from the line) to beat him,” assured the 22-year-old, happy to “finally” offer himself his first bouquet of the year. The apotheosis of his road season, before devoting himself to cyclo-cross.
One wheel away from his third victory in 2024, Loïc Forestier was “as happy as if he had won”, rushing to Ansard to do a check after the line. “Doing two with my little training isn’t bad.” He leaves Coulanges with a tidy sum. Which he doesn’t know exactly. “I won the €100 bonus? I didn’t even know!”
Alexandre Mazel
