Antoine Berger felt the blow well. This Saturday, you had to be in the breakaway to hope to win the second stage of the Tour du Pays Roannais. The SCO Dijon rider found himself at the front in a group of eleven riders, before proving to be the strongest of the escapees in the last ten kilometers (see ranking). The 24-year-old rider, who scored his third success of the season in Sevelinges (Loire), also took the yellow jersey on the eve of the last stage. He expresses his satisfaction at the microphone of DirectVelo.
DirectVelo: What does this success represent in the Tour du Pays Roannais?
Antoine Berger: Many things. After a short period of depression, it feels good to get that feeling back. There wasn’t really a plan at the start of the stage. Generally, I wait until the end of the race to play with the best when it gets tough and today, I felt good so I decided to assume my role by going into the breakaway. I believed it…
Did you quickly understand that the escape could go far?
At the beginning, there was no runner from Bourg-en-Bresse, that scared me a little. There wasn’t a boy like Joris Chaussinand, I expected to see him arrive but finally one of his teammates arrived (Léon Picard, Editor’s note). It was going well. We had a good group of eleven runners, with Kane (Richards) who is not stingy with his efforts, he covered the entire valley alone in front. The AC Bisontine runners did a big job. It came together well. Everyone played the game. Well… Almost everyone (smile).
How did you handle the ending?
I wanted to end up alone. I didn’t know when I was going to attack. I was looking at each lap for the best time to do it in the last loop. At one point, there was a small break. I was brought back and with the momentum, I saw that there was a very good opportunity to jump. That’s what I did. They waited for around twenty seconds, which allowed me to widen the gap. I was confident, I was good on the bumps and there was still one descent where it was difficult to come back.
“MY FIRST YELLOW JERSEY”
Here you are in yellow…
This is my first yellow jersey since I started cycling. I’m super happy and if I can bring him home tomorrow night (Sunday) that would be great. I looked at the route book to see what awaits us on the last leg. The difficulties are concentrated on the first part, but it’s difficult to know how it will run. We have a great team to defend the yellow jersey.
How do you judge your season so far?
I’m super happy to have won twice in Elite (see his DirectVelo profile). A year and a half ago, I never would have imagined that I would be able to do this, so it’s awesome. On paper, I had set myself more objectives for the first part of the season but we don’t always do what we want.
You won in February in Elite at Puyloubier, but not since…
After Puyloubier, I perhaps eased the pressure a little. I felt like I had already accomplished my goals. I also fell twice in the space of a month so it affected me physically but also mentally, it gave me a little blow especially since I had broken my bike and I was therefore riding a bicycle of spare. It’s these little things that make my morale and physique worse.
