Kévin Fouache had difficulty finding the words, a few minutes after the brilliant success of Antoine L’hote on the roads and in the muddy vineyard paths of Paris-Tours Espoirs. Neither the rain, nor the cold, nor even a puncture at the very end of the race (read here) did not get the better of the very great physical condition of the Northerner, who won alone. “What to say? Frankly, it’s a great victory for him, for the team and for the staff. I am very happy for him”rejoices the sports director of the hexagonal Conti to DirectVelo.
Before the start, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale DT had three cards to play: Noa Isidore, Antoine L’hote and Rasmus Pedersen. “We had the ability to play on several levels. It wasn’t necessarily planned for Antoine to move forward straight away but I had set a limit of riders not to be overtaken in the breakaway without being represented there too. If there were more than seven-eight riders, you had to be at the front. Antoine read the race perfectly and felt it was right”welcomes the technician. Then, in the finale, Antoine L’hote managed to get rid of all the strong fellows who had still accompanied him until then. “He handled himself like a great and his victory cannot be contested, any more than last week at the Tour d’Eure-et-Loir. It is astonishingly calm and serene”.
“WE ARE NOT GOING TO SKIP THE STEPS”
Until a few weeks ago, however, Antoine L’hote was not really one of the riders who had marked this 2024 Conti season. But Hope 1 ended the season like a cannonball after having accumulated maximum experience and funds over the first six months of the year. “He was very often at the coalface for the team. He has progressed enormously between the start of the season and today. At the Tour de Bretagne, he started to show good things. There were encouraging signs even if it was not yet visible in the results. He had a very good Tour of Britain, being placed overall whilst working for the team”. Since then, he has spent more than a hundred kilometers at the front on Paris-Chauny and has therefore completed the Tour d’Eure-et-Loir and Paris-Tours double, with in the meantime a participation in Binche-Chimay-Binche with the parent company.
Will this remarkable end to the season already convince the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale WorldTeam to offer Antoine L’hote a contract for 2026, while the 2025 squad is closed (see here) ? “He is only Hope 1, we are not going to skip the steps, everything in its time, but in any case he validates beautiful things. However, we must not go too quickly”answers Kévin Fouache. The former French Junior Champion has in any case proven what he is capable of in these Classics that he loves so much.
