Aurélie Sacchelli, Media365, published on Monday January 6, 2025 at 5:37 p.m.
In an interview given to Marca on the sidelines of the presentation of the Vuelta 2025, Laurent Jalabert estimated that cycling Spain did not really have anything to complain about in terms of results, compared to France.
Next summer, Laurent Jalabert will celebrate 30 years since his victory in the Vuelta. The man who is now a television and radio consultant is the last Frenchman to have won a Grand Tour, Bernard Hinault being the last to have triumphed in the Tour de France, in 1985, and Laurent Fignon in the Giro, in 1989. Suffice to say that when the journalists of the Spanish daily Mark asked him, on the sidelines of the presentation of the Vuelta 2025 route, if the situation of Spanish cycling was better than that of French cycling, Laurent Jalabert did not hesitate. “I am the last Frenchman to have won a Grand Tour and that was in 95, so we are worse than the Spaniards (Alberto Contador, last Spanish winner, won the Vuelta in 2014, editor's note). In Spain there have always been good runners. Now there are some too, but winning a Grand Tour is something else. Juan Ayuso and Carlos Rodriguez can achieve this, especially Juan. The fact is that today in cycling, which is more explosive, there is a lot of competition.” Juan Ayuso (22 years old) has already finished 3rd and 4th in the Vuelta in 2022 and 2023 and Carlos Rodriguez (23 years old ) 5th in the 2023 Tour de France.
Jalabert believes in Martinez
No young Frenchman can say the same, but Laurent Jalabert still has high hopes for one of them, Lenny Martinez (21 years old), 7th in the Tour de Catalunya and 8th in the Tour de Romandie in 2024, and who left, on January 1, Groupama-FDJ for Bahrain-Victorious. “Let’s hope that the new French Grand Tour champion is already in the peloton. Martinez promises a lot, but the path is difficult for everyone. We will see if he is able to go higher than he is currently.” To date, the son of 2000 Olympic mountain bike champion Miguel Martinez has finished two Grand Tours: 24th in the 2023 Vuelta (wearing the red jersey for two days) and 124th in the last Tour de France Will he be able to finally dust off the French record on the Grand Tours?
