{"id":797320,"date":"2026-03-01T17:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T17:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/797320\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T17:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T17:27:14","slug":"lease-a-bike-left-unrewarded-in-france-as-jorgenson-is-beaten-by-gregoire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/797320\/","title":{"rendered":"Lease a Bike left unrewarded in France as Jorgenson is beaten by Gr\u00e9goire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romain Gr\u00e9goire<\/a> has won the Faun Dr\u00f4me Classic after beating Matteo Jorgenson<\/a> in a straight two-up fight. The American of Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a> showed both strength and race craft throughout the day, but could not shake the faster Frenchman, who finished the job on the final kick. <\/b>The Faun Dr\u00f4me Classic was held the day after the Faun-Ard\u00e8che Classic<\/a>, a one-day race on roads used at last year\u2019s European Championships. On Saturday, 19-year-old Paul Seixas was in a league of his own, dropping riders such as Jorgenson and Mattias Skjelmose and winning by close to two minutes.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, there was no repeat of that scenario. Seixas was not on the start line for the Dr\u00f4me Classic, but many of Saturday\u2019s riders did return. Among them was Dutchman Sjoerd Bax (Q36.5), who made sure he was represented in the breakaway along with six other riders.<\/p>\n

The decisive part of the race came in the finale, where the climbs followed each other in quick succession: seven short, punchy ascents inside the final 50 kilometres. The escapees saw their advantage melt away, and on the Col de la Grande Limite \u2014 the highest point of the day \u2014 their move was finally brought to an end.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo<\/p>\n

\"davide-piganzoli\"\/<\/p>\n

Davide Piganzoli showed himself for the first time in the yellow of Visma\u00a0<\/p>\n

Strong Visma still come up short<\/p>\n

Visma | Lease a Bike took control at the head of a steadily thinning peloton. The first real acceleration came from Lidl-Trek, where Mattias Skjelmose pushed on and drew Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and Ben Tulett (Visma | Lease a Bike) with him. They crested together, but the chasing group was close behind and the race soon regrouped \u2014 after which Tulett\u2019s team-mate Davide Piganzoli attacked.<\/p>\n

With the hardest kilometres already behind them, making a decisive difference was difficult. The racing became stop-start, but Jorgenson and Gr\u00e9goire (Groupama\u2013FDJ) timed their move perfectly. They quickly opened a gap, and Visma | Lease a Bike then shut things down behind to protect the front pair\u2019s advantage. Beno\u00eet Cosnefroy (UAE Team Emirates \u2013 XRG) attempted to bridge across, but could not make it stick.<\/p>\n

Jorgenson and Gr\u00e9goire worked well together and started the final short climb \u2014 which also hosted the finish \u2014 with just the two of them. Could the American do anything against the Frenchman\u2019s speed? He could not: Gr\u00e9goire was simply the fastest on the line, with Jorgenson taking second. Behind them, Martinez sprinted to third.<\/p>\n

Result Faun Dr\u00f4me Classic 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Romain Gr\u00e9goire has won the Faun Dr\u00f4me Classic after beating Matteo Jorgenson in a straight two-up fight. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[4230,2000,299,231459,36,94767,75813,207841,11186],"class_list":["post-797320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-cycling","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-faun-ardeche-classic","tag-france","tag-groupama-fdj","tag-matteo-jorgenson","tag-romain-gregoire","tag-visma-lease-a-bike"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116155098456731521","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}