GP de Fourmies / La Voix du Nord 2025

September 14, 2025 The GP de Fourmies / La Voix du Nord resumes the Coupe de France after nearly a month since the last event of the series. The race has a rich history with this being its 92nd edition and is know to be a hard, leg sapping race that the sprinters can just about manage. Starting in Fourmies, the route heads out to Avesnes-sur-Helpe in almost a directly straight line. It cuts back East along the L'Helpe Majeure where the route picks up a 35KM circuit. After two and a half laps, the course heads back to Fourmies for six laps of a 10.5KM local circuit. There are no major climbs but the roads constantly roll up and down all day long and after 193KM, there will be some tired bodies coming to the finish in a likely sprint. Five riders got up the road as a bit of mist and fog was settling into the Département du Nord. The leaders were Mike Teunissen of XDS-Astana, Léandre Huck of Cofidis, Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto, Antoine Hue of CIC-U-Nantes, and Célestin Guillon of Van Rysel-Roubaix. With 70KM to go on the way to the start of the local circuits, the break had 2 minutes on the bunch being led by Tudor Pro Cycling, Picnic-PostNL, and Soudal Quickstep. The gap was still hovering around 1 minute 45 seconds when the race arrived to the circuit. The peloton was still large and looked powerful which signaled that they had the break well under control. Coming through 4 laps to go, nerves were definitely starting to show as the fight for the front was getting more intense. Rain was also coming down a bit heavier and through a left corner abut 300M after the finish line, at least 10 riders came down including four from Jayco AlUla. There were a few more crashes but the sprint teams remained in control and kept the speed high enough to discourage any attacks from the peloton. Decathlon AG2R started riding more intently and were really pushing with Dries De Bondt. De Bondt lined out the peloton and when he came off the front, many took the opportunity to take a breath which finally opened the race to attacks. Uno-X Mobility and Van Rysel-Roubaix each tried to escape but Decathlon AG2R settled the bunch down and continued the chase. Soudal Quickstep and Picnic-PostNL arrived back at the front through two laps to go but still had 40 seconds to close on Teunissen, Veistroffer, and Huck who had increased their effort. Through the bell with 10.5KM to go, Andrea Mifsud of Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur attacked but he was quickly marked by XDS-Astana, Picnic-PostNL, and Soudal Quickstep. The break were in sight at 15 seconds with 8KM to go but they were not giving up. Teunissen was the last one caught at 3KM to go and a counter attack immediately went from Henri Uhlig of Alpecin-Deceuninck and Axel Huens of Unibet-Tietema Rockets. The head wind put an end to their move within 1KM and the lead out trains were driving full force towards the finish. Under 1KM to go, Picnic-PostNL were leading for Pavel Bittner with Jayco AlUla sitting behind amongst the crowded blob of riders waiting for the sprint. Israel-Premier Tech led through 400M but their lead out got swarmed by the fast men starting their sprint from behind. Søren Wærenskjold of Uno-X Mobility was first to launch, just before the final sweeping bend at 300M. Bittner was following Wærenskjold through the inside with Paul Magnier of Soudal Quickstep on the outside of the corner out in the wind. When the road straightened, Wærenskjold got out of the saddle for the final kick and his chain slipped. He had to sit down which ended his bid for the win. It was a two way battle between Bittner and Magnier. It was Magnier who got the better run out of the corner and powered to the win by a bike length over Bittner with Yevgeniy Fedorov of XDS-Astana taking the last podium spot for third.