After the time trial on Monday, France achieved a new hat-trick in the men’s C4 category of the Para-cycling World Championships this Thursday in Zurich by also taking the podium in the road race. Gatien Le Rousseau, Mattis Lebeau and Kévin Le Cunff finished the race in that order after breaking away in threes, before crossing the finish line together.
“Mattis and Kevin were the strongest, it was nice of them to let me win. We proved that in C4, France was the strongest nation,” reacted Gatien Le Rousseau, fourth at the Paris Paralympic Games where the C4/5 categories were mixed.
On Monday, it was Mattis Lebeau who beat Kevin Le Cunff, who won the time trial at the Paralympic Games this summer, by more than sixteen seconds, and Gatien Le Rousseau, who took silver in Paris, by more than a minute. Kevin Le Cunff, who won the road race in Tokyo three years earlier, took silver in Paris, beaten in the sprint by the Ukrainian Yehor Dementyev, who became C5 world champion on Thursday in Zurich.
Two other French riders won silver medals this Thursday: Florian Jouanny in H2 and Anaïs Vincent in H3. In pairs, the two handbikers had already reached the podium during the time trials. The Frenchman finished second, the Frenchwoman third.
