While winter freezes France to the bone and dissuades even the bravest from getting out on their bikes, Eddy Le Huitouze is far from such considerations. For the past few days, the 21-year-old from Morbihan has been baking in the austral summer, somewhere near Adelaide, in the south of Australia. With six of his Groupama-FDJ teammates, this is where he is preparing to launch the 2025 exercise on the Tour Down Under, this Tuesday, the first WorldTour race on the calendar. The start of his second professional season, the one where “we’re going to have to do better”.
The click after August
Because if he considers his year 2024 “quite good”, the runner from Landévant has sometimes been overwhelmed by an ever more hellish pace and races that are too mountainous for his sacred size (1.84 m). Honest, he admits that he has “picked up quite a bit” in his first months with the big boys.
Fortunately, the turning point came in the second part of the season, once the summer was well underway. “You just need to progress by 1% and you'll pass 30 guys in the rankings at once,” he recalls. An end to the year where he got his first top 10 among the pros (on the Tour Poitou-Charentes and at the Chrono des Nations) as well as an “unexpected” selection for the European Championship, mid-September in Belgium . The Breton with a roller profile also discovered his skills on the Flandrian events, made of cobblestones and explosive bumps, where resistance counts more than anything. “I expect him almost everywhere, not just on lap times,” warns his boss Marc Madiot. He must be convinced of his potential and let go of the handbrake. »
An area that he intends to develop in the future and a good way to diversify his palette, in order to avoid finding himself confined to a teammate role from the start. And, perhaps, to be able to follow, one day, in the footsteps of his teammate Stefan Küng, capable of finishing the same year on the podium at Paris-Roubaix then on that of the world time trial championships.
-A departure to Nice this winter
Before reaching such heights, Eddy Le Huitouze is aware that his future will firstly be that of a good team member serving his leaders. A role that he has not necessarily experienced among young people but which he likes quite well. “I would rather help a teammate to win than go for 14th place,” he assures.
At the dawn of a season where he would like to discover the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix as well as a grand tour (the Tour of Spain?), he has also chosen to live in Nice this winter, where the sun and the mountain are one. There, sharing a room with his teammate, friend and fellow Breton Brieuc Rolland, he hopes to find the “big room for improvement” that remains for him. History of slowly getting closer to a first professional victory – “not an obsession or a pressure”, he assures – and to take full advantage of the brilliant future that he was always promised.
France
Cycling
