Grand Prix de Denain - Porte du Hainaut 2024

March 14, 2024 Five got up the road after about 20KM and they set the pace of the race until the cobblestones of "Mini Paris-Roubaix" got started. After the first two sectors, the peloton had split into multiple groups, starting the whittling down process from the back. Stefan Küng of Groupama-FDJ got away from the peloton with about 70KM to go and quickly got a minute's advantage with over three minutes back from the leaders. Two had dropped from the break, leaving Cériel Desal of Bingoal WB, Jannik Steimle of Q36.5, and Maxime Jarnet of Van Rysel-Roubaix. This pattern stayed consistent for 30KM until UAE and Lotto-Dstny hit a longer stretch of cobbles and reduced the peloton to only about ten riders. They were on to Küng at 39KM but still had a chase to get to the front. At 15KM to go, the trio still had one minute fifteen seconds on the now nine chasers. The chasers hit the final set of cobbles, led on by Küng. Küng hit a wet patch and fell, bringing down every other rider in the chase, one after the other. Brent Van Moer of Lotto-Dstny and Dries Van Gestel of TotalEnergies were the first two up, eventually joined by Arnaud De Lie of Lotto-Dstny and Hugo Page of Intermarché-Wanty but they lost a lot of time with only a few KM to chase. Jarnet got distanced from the front leaving just Steimle and Desal to fight for the win. The pair started their maneuvering at 1KM to go, with Desal on the front. At 250M, Steimle started his sprint and immediately had the gap on Desal and was able to hold on for the win, Desal took second. Jarnet was caught right before the line by Van Gestel and finished in sixth place while Van Gestel led the four chasers home to finish third.