Emmanuel LANGELLIER, Media365: published on Sunday November 3, 2024 at 2:25 p.m.
The French Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale team can be proud of a very good year in 2024.
The 2024 cycling season has ended. While the 2025 Tour de France has just been presented, there has obviously been a lot of talk about Tadej Pogacar's grand vintage. An insatiable glutton, the young Slovenian prodigy won the Grande Boucle, the Giro, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Blanche, the Worlds and the Tour of Lombardy. In total, the 26-year-old rider scored 25 victories in 57 days. For its part, the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale training also shone. Ben O'Connor's French team (4th in the world) has won 30 times this year. Great work appreciated as it should be by Julien Jurdie, the sports director.
30 victories, 40 podiums, 6th place in the world for the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale team
“We performed like never before. The figures speak for themselves: 30 victories by 12 different riders, 40 podiums, we finished 6th world team in the UCI ranking and Ben O'Connor 4th in the individual ranking. At the start of the season, I set the goal of finishing 6th in this ranking, knowing that finishing between 8 and 10 would have been great satisfaction. Before the Tour de France, we were even 3rd, but our Grande Boucle did not go as we would have liked. Fortunately ; we performed well in the Giro and the Vuelta,” rejoices Jurdie in Le Progrès.
Jurdie: “I also showed more authority and my messages of rigor were perfectly understood”
The boss of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale explains this success by “the magic of sport”. “I gave the same messages at the start of the season as those of two or three years ago, but with more intensity. I also showed more authority and my messages of rigor were perfectly understood. Our start to the season was successful and we continued on the wave of success for as long as possible. » This year, Paul Lapeira was notably crowned French champion in Saint-Martin de-Landelles with the French team, 17 years after the last title in the event, and Bruno Armirail also won the cup in the counter-attack. -watch . Décathlon AG2R La Mondiale also wore the leader's red jersey for 13 days on the Vuelta where Ben O'Connor finished in 2nd place behind Primoz Roglic.
