Six years later, Clément Venturini once again grabbed 4th place in a World Cup round. Under the sun of Besançon, in front of a large audience, the French Champion shone his tricolor jersey at the head of the race. He led an entire lap, the second, before falling back a bit. “The advantage when you are in front is that you take your trajectories, you go at your own pace, nobody bothers youhe comments for DirectBike. I knew that if it didn’t go fast enough the others would overtake me. I knew very well that Mathieu (Van der Poel) was going to put his peanut and that was where you had to be in contact. I was notBut neither Eli Iserbyt nor Joris Nieuwenhuis could keep up with the acceleration of the Dutch machine either.
In the counter group, the AG2R-Citroën rider asked to put one on on the fifth lap but he couldn’t make the hole and Nieuwenhuis jumped into his wheel. On the penultimate lap, he thought he had a puncture. “At one point I think there was a bit of dew and I started sliding all over the place. It made me lose touch a bit but I just think there was humidity. and it got more and more slippery“, he analyzes.
“IT’S PLEASURE TO HAVE THEM IN THAT SENSE”
It is therefore a little off from the group which was playing for the podium that he approaches the last lap and the places are expensive. “In the end I got close to the top guys and I think it was starting to bother them because as soon as they could get me inside they would spend it. So I showed them that if they wanted to play dumb, I could do it too. They don’t give gifts. Every runner deserves respect and I think they should respect me too“.
The Rhodanian therefore signs the best result of a Frenchman in the Elite World Cup this season. But Clément Venturini keeps a cool head. “Hot it’s hard to know if I’m proud of my race. I preferred to follow my rhythm. I didn’t get carried away at all. The public would have pushed me a little but I was channeling my emotions to try to be focused when the race was going to settle down“. The 29-year-old rider also has memories and remembers that in the quagmire of Besançon in the 2016 French Championship, the reception was colder when he was battling against Francis Mourey.”The podium would have been really nice, especially in France. After 2016 when it was rather the opposite, there the public advised me against it. It’s nice to have them that way.“. The form is there before the World Championship in Hoogerheide, where, precisely, he had already finished 4th in the World Cup in 2017. But the WorldTour rider does not forget the rest either.”It’s encouraged, especially four weeks before I get back on the road.“.