With Julian Alaphilippe, Romain Bardet and Olympic vice-champion Valentin Madouas in particular, the French cycling team, whose composition was announced on Friday, is counting on teamwork and experience to shine again at the Road World Championships in Zurich.
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Julien Bernard, Romain Grégoire, Pavel Sivakov, Rudy Molard and David Gaudu complete the selection of eight riders for the road race which will take place on Sunday September 29, while Bruno Armirail and Thibaut Guernalec will compete in the time trial starting this Sunday.
Kevin Vauquelin and Christophe Laporte, Olympic bronze medallist and pillar of the Blues, are the main absentees. The former is experiencing “a bout of fatigue” according to his team Arkéa-B&B Hôtels after winning a stage of the Tour de France and participating in the Olympic Games, while Laporte is suffering from the mountainous profile of the road race (273 km and 4,470 meters of positive elevation gain).
” Given the difference in altitude, it wasn’t even a subject. I hope that Christophe will have other routes that will suit him better. “, explains coach Thomas Voeckler.
Guillaume Martin and Warren Barguil were not selected. by choice “As for Quentin Pacher, who was in Voeckler’s thoughts, he recently suffered a broken collarbone in a fall during training.
” Outsiders »
The coach considers that his team has ” of the allure ” even if it does not have in its ranks a super favorite like the Slovenians Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel or the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, reigning world champion.
” You don’t show up with the strongest runner in the world. You shouldn’t take people for fools.Voeckler insists. We are not presenting ourselves with the status that we could have had at the time of Imola or Louvain. “, in 2020 and 2021 during Alaphilippe’s two world titles. ” We are more outsiders, especially on this type of course. Over the course of the year, many riders are superior to us. “, the coach further emphasizes.
” This does not mean that we are not ambitious, quite the contrary. “, adds Voeckler who is banking on the collective and racing intelligence with a squad that is generally very experienced, apart from the young Grégoire, with four thirty-somethings in particular.
There is therefore no designated leader, at least publicly, a role that Julian Alaphilippe, David Gaudu or Romain Bardet, who will retire in June 2025 and will therefore be competing in his last World Championships, regularly take on in their respective teams.
Cavagna at the quay
“ Our interest is not to bet everything on a single leader for whom the seven riders work “, believes Voeckler, who has become a master in recent years in the art of confusing the issue for a fairly remarkable record with, in addition to Alaphilippe’s two victories in 2000 and 2021, Laporte’s world silver in 2022 and European gold in 2023 as well as the two Olympic medals in Paris this summer.
The French team will be attentive to the different movements of the race to react according to the scenarios with climbers like Bardet, Gaudu or Sivakov or more punchy riders like Alaphilippe, Madouas or Grégoire on a course which looks a bit like that of the hilly classic Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
The eight selected include four riders from the Groupama-FDJ team, including Rudy Molard, who is back in the spotlight after a start to the year marked by a serious fall at the Tour Down Under.
On the other hand, there will be very little hope of a medal in the time trial, as Rémi Cavagna, the “TGV of Clermont-Ferrand”, was once again left stranded. He is having a somewhat complicated seasonnotes Voeckler. We don’t go to the World Championships to score points. I explained it to Rémi and he understood it very well.. »