Marie Mahé, Media365, published on Monday December 30, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
In an interview with L'Equipe, Marc Madiot, the boss of Groupama-FDJ, looked at the future of cycling, with some concern.
It's already time to look at the 2025 season. Marc Madiot spoke about it this Monday to the French sports daily The Team. But with the retirement of Patrice Lefévère, the manager of the Belgian team Soudal Quick-Step, a page is turning, according to the boss of the Groupama-FDJ team: “There is an evolution, but it goes beyond that framework (…) In the old days, the riders traveled in the white 504, I remember André Foucher (a rider from Mayen, teammate in particular of Henry Anglade or Raymond. Poulidor) with the bikes on the trunk, we traveled around thirty kilometers to go from one criterium to another. There, this is not at all a criticism, I see Van der Poel arriving at the cross country in Belgium with his Lamborghini, going to Besançon with a private jet, (…). Good for him, but I tell myself that cycling is changing worlds and times. When we see that Red Bull already has stakes in two teams (RedBull-Bora-hansgrohe and Tudor), that they are in several football clubs, in Formula 1, in the boat, everywhere… Ineos, same thing. I think that 2025-2026, we are entering a big shift.”
Madiot: “We were small grocers, Lefévère, me or others”
Madiot, with a certain apprehension, believes that the model that cycling was until now should therefore change: “We were small grocers, Lefévère, me or others, and it's the end of an era . It can be annoying, but today we are moving towards 5-6 groups, there is no longer any point in calling them “teams”which are at 50 million (budget), in the long term there will probably be 10 or 15. Teams like ours, we were comfortable, settled in over time and duration, but there are questions which will arise. (…) It will inevitably influence the future. Maybe tomorrow there will only be two or three races in France. Are we ready for this? Is that what we want?”
