Nail-biting photo finish Team Picnic PostNL win Paris-Chauny with Pavel Bittner

After some strong lead-outs and performances in recent weeks, Team Picnic PostNL showed their fighting spirit today and took the spoils on Sunday at Paris-Chauny in a sprint finish win with Pavel Bittner.

Controlling the race from the start and setting tempo in the peloton behind the breakaway, Team Picnic PostNL had their eyes clearly set on a fast finale and to go for a top result with Bittner. Riding well as a unit, the squad were quick to adapt to some strong late attacks on the final climbs, remaining calm and making sure things came back together. Then in the closing kilometres, they moved up well, bringing Bittner forward into a position to be competitive around the last corner. With the finish line in sight, the Development program graduate launched a long sprint effort, holding off the charging competition by an incredibly small margin, but enough that he and the team could raise their arms aloft on the day’s podium.

Bittner said: “The team did well throughout the race and looked after me. The last part was quite hard, with some small climbs and a few strong attacks were made there. As a team we tried to have it under control, which we did well, and things came back together. It was quite warm today, my legs were hurting a bit in the final, but we knew I had the sprint to compete, and I tried to stay confident for that. I still had my teammates with me who put me in position for the last corner. Then on the last straight I just launched my sprint full and went all-in to the line. It’s really nice to get the result like this with the team.”

Team Picnic PostNL coach Pim Ligthart added: “We directly took control from the start of the day, with Milan riding at the front of the bunch alongside some other teams for almost the first 150 kilometres. In the final we had to improvise a bit and close down the late attack over the last climb. The team stayed calm though which was great, and we still had several guys with Pavel going into the finish where they could set him up. Then Pavel could launch the sprint with 200 metres to go, which is what he wanted to do, and could hold on for the win at the end. I think this is one of the smallest winning margins I’ve seen. We can be really happy to get the win today and also with the results last week with Frits, we see that this group has been on point and believe we can still get some nice results in the final races of the year.”