“We are average”
Marc Madiot, we are now two days before the great departure of the Tour of Italy, which starts This Friday, May 9 of Albania. LAt first part of the season and spring of the classics has just ended … What assessment do you draw from these first months of competiton? Small reminder in figures, Groupama-FDJ occupies 14th place in the UCI 2025 classification, and has four victory (David Gaudu, Romain Grégoire and Guillaume Martin X2).
We always hope more and better. We would have liked to have a little more victories and UCI points, but the race is not always easy to manage. I find that we were quite well in the classics, even if we have not always had the end result which goes with it at the end. For example in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, we had a good team, and at the exit we do not make a big score in points … But that is the life of the classics. And then 4 victories, it’s correct, but it’s not exceptional either. We will say that we are average.
What is missing to pass this little milestone and get podiums on monuments or victories on semi-classical?
We can clearly see that there is a ditch that is widening between the mega teams with very important budgets and the rest of the peloton … There are five or six teams which trusses the victories and the points, and then behind, there are a soft belly of a dozen teams in which we are located. They do a little more or a little less every weekend, and they share the crumbs a little if I may say so.
Guillaume Martin is one of the flagship recruits of this 2025 season, and he has been working hard for a few weeks. How do you judge his first months with Groupama-FDJ?
He had a little difficult start, because he had little worries with a knee, he was a little disturbed by that. But there, he found a good cruise rate, especially by winning two recovery in Besançon, and he was not bad on the Ardennes. So we are satisfied with his behavior, his integration into the team, there is no particular difficulty. We made a good way together, and I think we are going to do beautiful things in the coming months, especially on the Critérium du Dauphiné and on the Tour de France.
“There will be opportunities on this Giro”
We are now entering a new part of the season with the start of the Tour of Italy this Friday, May 9. You present yourself in Albania with the great leader David Gaudu, who will discover the race. Where is it after the past few weeks disrupted by many falls and a wrist injury?
These falls and in particular that of Tirreno-Adriatico disturbed all his start to the season, because otherwise he had started rather well by winning on the Tour of Oman and finishing on the podium. Here, we came out a bit of this bad spiral, he was able to recover, he resumed quietly on the Tour de Romandie. The difficulty for him is going to be the first part of the Giro, to find all his sensations and his best physical level. Afterwards, once he passed this first half of Giro, we should have good level gaudu in the mountain stages. It should progress over the stages, and we’ll see where it situates. But for the moment, it is difficult to project ourselves in the general classification, we will already take the days one after the others at the start of the race.
In terms of percentage of form, where would you sit?
We are not on percentages there, we are on find a progressive physical level. Giving a percentage is a bit arbitrary. It is not that we don’t want to project ourselves, but we just don’t know. We do not know how he will find the fullness of his means, what maturity … We know that it will come back, that we are convinced of it, because the stages and the race will make it will improve gradually. But we don’t know when and at what level. You have to give yourself a little time and patience …
-So there is no specific objective on paper?
The idea is to get a stage victory with the team. And then if we can make a good final classification with David, if he does not waste too much time in the Prmeière half of the race … We will do a little what we did on the Vuelta last year, the idea is a bit. Now we will see how things are going.
From a more general point of view on this Giro, we expect a duel between Roglic and Ayuso, do you share this opinion?
I have not yet seen the final list, so we will wait to know it within 48 hours. We are going to do our race, and we hope to improve once again over time. And then if there are stages where the noose is a little less tightened for the escapes … There will be opportunities to go there for certain runners, such as Quentin Pacher for example. He can play an interesting role and get a stage victory. He almost did it on the Tour de France and the Vuelta 2024, so we can legitimately think that he will have an opportunity or two to score on the Giro.
Precisely, Quentin Pacher, Kevin Geniets, Rémy Rochas … Do you count on them not only to support David Gaudu, but also to win great results?
We know that a Giro, there are a little wider opportunities on the Tour de France. We will try to take advantage of it and be an actor with our runners to go to the escapes when the classification will allow.
“The departure of Stefan Küng? I’m all that with a certain smile … and a lot of hindsight”
To evoke a subject and a rumor that has made a lot of noise in recent days, especially among the Groupama-FDJ supporters: Stefan Küng is announced on the start, probably towards the Tudor team. Do you want to comment, or not at all?
No, I no longer comment on this kind of thing, because I sometimes learn even that I am in contact with runners that I have never met or with whom I have never discussed. I am very careful about what I read or see, and I am all that with a certain smile … and a lot of hindsight.
To conclude, a good Giro for you and Groupama-FDJ would that be?
A stage victory, good overall behavior, a progression for David Gaudu, and it will be perfect.
