After a few weeks at Groupama-FDJ, what are your first impressions?
It is a very efficient team in terms of optimization. There are very good coaches like Frédéric Grappe or Julien Pinot, a great staff. And they are really up to date on everything material! However, there is also a very human and family side to Groupama-FDJ.
It is important and even essential for me. If I want to be good on the bike, competitive, I must first be good in the head, have good teammates and supervisors. This is what I found so I am very happy to be there, with Cyril (Barthe). Between Béarnais, we are united.
Have you met all your teammates?
We had a small internship at the start of the season in Besançon this fall to do the postural study, go to several medical appointments concerning osteopathy, orthopedic insoles… etc… It allowed me to discover all the staff, my coach Nicolas Boisson, the whole team. Then, we all met in Calpe, near Valencia in Spain for two weeks in December. All the pro teams go there because it's a good place to ride in winter.
It was a big course, there were the 27 riders from the World Tour and part of the Continental. We also had an evening called the high mass. Basically, Marc Madiot introduces everyone, the partners. There were 140 of us, some just came for this day. This is the big gathering at the start of the season.
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What's next for you before starting the competition in February?
I left at the end of last week for a big training course in Tenerife, mainly with climbers like David Gaudu, Guillaume Martin or Rudy Molard. We spend twelve days at the summit of the Teide volcano, in a hotel at an altitude of more than 2000 meters. It's really the big block of pre-season preparation, very strong, with a lot of endurance and intensity. Then, I stay eight days in a hypoxic chamber with David Gaudu. It simulates altitude conditions, particularly in relation to oxygen.
It’s already going to be a great experience…
It's sure that it's going to be enriching to see it from the inside, because I've observed it from the outside until then, even if I was able to discover the professional world a little last season with the Decathlon-AG2R team (he was in the Continental squad but ran with the World Tour, Editor's note). Besides, it was useful to me because I realized that the great champions that we can put on a pedestal when we see them on TV are human.
I was able to put things into perspective and tell myself that if I was in that place it was because I was legitimate to do these races. When you've been following Cycling for 15 years, watching all these guys, it impresses you to race against them at the start. I did the Tour des Alpes last year and found myself with Geraint Thomas and Romain Bardet. And at the end of the stage, I was not far from them. It's going to be really interesting to meet all these great runners in training or in competition.
Do you feel like you have changed world?
I had a little preview last season. Just having the bus racing is great! With the Conti', it's basic. In World Tour, there is more comfort. On everything else too, it is the very high level so there is a change in dimension. Now that I am in the first team, all the necessary tools are offered to us to perform: training, adaptation to the heat, altitude courses, diet and nutrition monitoring with the blood sugar chip. Obviously, it allows you to evolve and progress from a physical point of view.
December 15, 2024 – Calpe – Spain – Tom Donnenwirth
The editorial team advises you
The editorial team advises you
You really started cycling in 2022 at Pau Vélo 64. Are you worried that the step will be too high?
Above all, I am very impatient to discover all these beautiful races, and everything there is around too. I love seeing the spectators supporting us. But obviously, I ask myself am I going to live up to the team, to the top level in the world? I feel ready for it, even if this first year is inevitably about discovery, there will be plenty of things to see. I want to perform as well as possible to help the team.
Your progress has been dazzling over the last three years. How do you perceive it?
Every year, I discover a level higher than mine. So the start of the season is a little complicated because I have to adapt. I hope that this year it will be faster, that I will progress in January in particular thanks to this internship, in order to be able to give the best of myself for my great leaders. They need teammates and I find myself perfectly in this role.
But if the door opens, you're not the type to hide…
If there are opportunities, of course I will seize them. I'm in my place so a race, we're here to win it. Either way, it requires teamwork. And if one of my leaders wins, I'm as happy as if I raised my arms.
His program
“I return from training on January 30 and I start my season with the Tour of Oman (February 8 to 12). The day before departure, Friday February 7, I will line up for the Muscat Classic, a very rugged classic in Oman. After this big block, you will still have to take a breather and recover. I'm going to come home for two weeks and then I'll go back to the Boucles Drôme Ardèche with the Faun Ardèche Classic (March 1) and the Faun Drôme Classic (March 2). Then, if all goes well, the main lines would be Tour of Catalonia (March 24 to 30) and Tour of the Basque Country (April 7 to 12). But we’ll have to see how the start of the season goes.”
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