This Sunday, the Roc 2024 ended in style with an explosive Roc d’Azur and no shortage of suspense, where the French left only crumbs for their opponents! Report on the emblematic places of this legendary event:
A little before 8 a.m. this Sunday morning, the juniors took their place on the starting grid for their Roc d’Azur, greeted by a sumptuous sunrise. In a good half hour, it will be the turn of the 2,500 participants at the “real” Roc d’Azur to set off in several waves, a start given by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot herself.
As usual, things will go very quickly ahead despite the 55 kilometers to go. For us it is impossible to attend the start and then arrive on time on the course. So our program goes to the essentials as always: the descent of Fournel, the climb of Col du Bougnon… and the finish!
First step therefore, the legendary descent of Fournel. Always very spectacular, it is a Mecca of the event and the public is very numerous every year.
After a few editions which took the left trace (on the left in the direction of descent, but on the far right in the image), the one on the right (on the left in the image, are you still following?) made its return to the route this year.
Parallel to the wide and very technical main track, a narrower but much easier line has been created on the right, behind the bushes. This is where the majority of the peloton risks tumbling…
And indeed! Mathis Azzaro leads the way in the Fournel, but a few meters behind appears the French champion jersey of Jordan Sarrou, already a record holder for victories on the Roc and who would add a fifth to his list of achievements.
Sarrou will however have to get rid of the Decathlon – Ford which occupy three of the four places in the breakaway group at this stage of the race! In his wake, Sarrou takes Joshua Debau and the future retiree from competition Maxime Marotte. The leading quartet has a lead of around thirty seconds at the bottom of the Fournel, after 12.5 kilometers of racing.
Faced with the armada of French cross racers, quite a few marathon runners already present on the Roc Marathon on Friday are there to do battle. Among them, Fabian Rabensteiner, Hector Paez Leon and Daniel Geismayr (here in photo) who had been forced to abandon the marathon.
Further on in the race, we see retiree Stéphane Tempier coming to have fun on the Roc…
… just like Dylan van Baarle, member of the Visma road team and incidentally companion of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
A big regular at the event which he won three times (1997, 2004 and 2013), Miguel Martinez was aiming for a top 50 this year. It will be mission accomplished with a 29th place!
For the women, who left 5 minutes after the first wave, the race promises to be interesting since most of the favorites are held within a few seconds! It is the Belgian Emeline Detilleux who leads the way followed closely by the outgoing winner Noémie Garnier, but also Constance Valentin and Sandra Mairhofer, 2nd in the Roc Marathon behind Loana Lecomte on Friday.
Before heading towards Bougnon, we appreciate the beautiful passage of Tatiana Tournut in the most technical line of Fournel!
Here we are at the Col du Bougnon, which every year on the occasion of the Roc d’Azur takes on the appearance of a Tour de France pass.
The atmosphere there is as always good-natured, and since the road leading to the pass is closed to traffic, it is an opportunity for those who came by bike to test themselves in these high percentages.
Nothing to scare Axel Zingle from the Cofidis team (on his road bike!), 4th in the Roc d’Azur in 2023 and who came to attend the race as a simple spectator this year.
Today, no disguise as a bishop, Obelix or Marsupilami, this time Flo and his gang put up a large banner above Bougnon to salute Maxime Marotte’s last race.
Shortly before 10 a.m., here is finally the leader of the race attacking Bougnon! He is alone, he is wearing a Decathlon – Ford jersey…
…it’s Mathis Azzaro! In good form at the XCO World Cups across the Atlantic in recent weeks, he has almost a minute’s lead after 35 km of racing and seems well on his way to winning his first Roc d’Azur.
Jordan Sarrou leads the pursuit alone behind the leader, not easy when you have to close a significant gap.
Joshua Dubau is also alone, a minute and a half from his teammate Matis Azzaro and 30 seconds from Jordan Sarrou.
As expected, the audience exploded when Maxime Marotte appeared! Shivers… And that makes four French people in the first four places in the provisional ranking.
Maxime Marotte leads a small group in which we find Samuele Porro, Hector Paez Leon and Andrea Candeago.
A little further on, a quartet is fighting for the last places in the top 10. With that, we head to the finish!
Photographers and members of the TV production (this year the race was broadcast live on L’Equipe and Youtube) are fine-tuning the final settings while waiting for the arrival and first victory of Mathis Azzaro on the Roc…
…but to everyone’s surprise, it’s Jordan Sarrou’s blue-white-red jersey that appears at the start of the final straight!
It’s not even close, Mr. Roc d’Azur has plenty of time to enjoy his 5th victory in the event. But what happened to Mathis Azzaro?!
There he arrives a few moments later, looking defeated.
We finally have the explanation: overcome by cramps, Mathis Azzaro simply could no longer push on the pedals… “ I don’t really explain why but after 1h30 I had cramps, and at the end on the flat I couldn’t even put on 200 watts so the gap disappeared super quickly. Jordan still had juice and I wasn’t really making any progress, the last half hour on the bike was real torture. Despite everything, I am happy to have taken charge of the race, and to finish 2nd. It’s a great way to end the season after my 2nd place last week in Mont-Sainte-Anne. »
2014, 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2024: beating your own record of victories is well worth throwing a can into the public!
« It was a bad start because Mathis made a hole in the long descent halfway through, for my part I was not 100% on the descents because it is very stony and a puncture quickly happened. I thought it was dead because there was more than a minute and a half gap with Mathis, but I never gave up and on the flat at the end I was only 30 seconds behind , then I was told 20, 15 seconds. I ended up seeing it and I said to myself, “I’m going to give it a try.” It’s incredible, I’m super happy! I think it was definitely my hardest victory to win at the Roc because I started having cramps ¾ of the way through the race. »
Joshua Dubau, third more than 3 minutes behind the winner, completes a 100% French podium!
In fourth and fifth place, we find the marathon runners Hector Paez Leon and Samuele Porro.
Maxime Marotte took 6th place in the last race of his professional career.
A supporter like no other on arrival: his son Louis!
It’s a nice 7th place on this Roc for the young Italian Andrea Candeago.
Arriving together, Lorenzo Trincheri (8th), Nathan Cornillon (9th) and Lucas Serrières (10th) complete the top 10.
Behind Julian Burnet, 11th, the young Belgian Théo Demarcin won the sprint for 12th place against three opponents.
Among the women, Emeline Detilleux resisted the attacks of her competitors and achieved her first success on the Rock!
She is ahead of Sandra Mairhofer (here in photo) by more than a minute and Greta Seiwald by more than 5 minutes.
We end this story with a little amusing information which clearly shows the excess and the success of the Roc d’Azur: the last wave of the event started at 11 a.m., in other words almost 20 minutes after the arrival of the winner!
