“We absolutely must stay in D2”, Montpellier is playing to stay in Vendée during the last stage of the French club championship

After two failed first stages in the spring, the Montpellier Triathlon launched the operation to stay in D2 last week during the third and penultimate round of the French club championship.

Not programmed to find themselves in such a situation, the two Montpellier teams, men’s and women’s, are going this weekend to Saint-Jean-de-Monts in Vendée to save their skin.

Part of the path was filled last Saturday in Quiberon in Morbihan. If the boys returned to Hérault in the position of red lantern, they paradoxically carried out a great operation.

By taking 11th place in Brittany, Théo Katgely (20th), Oscar Hobson (30th), Mathis Lecoq Houssais (36th) and their teammates have considerably reduced the gap with the first non-relegation team (2 points) before the grand final on Saturday. “We experienced the team’s first full race, breathes MAT coach Romain Bresson. We finally got the guys back where they should be in terms of performance.”

For the last meeting, Montpellier will be reinforced by the Spaniard Martin Candon Santos, eighth in his last national championship individually.

Bresson: “We must not miss”

As for the women’s team, the situation is a little less perilous. Twelfth in the general classification, the Montpellier women are four points ahead of the relegation zone.

In Quiberon, they finished in 12th position thanks to Cassandre Cellier (46th), Rachel Roques (47th) and New Zealander Emily Irvine (54th). “It’s not a done deal, we mustn’t mess up, warns the coach. The girls will have to repeat what they did last week.”

The whole club is mobilized behind its two teams to stay at this level of competition: “If we want to continue our progression in training, we absolutely have to stay in D2 to keep our best young people, explains Romain Bresson. And then we must meet the expectations of our institutional and private partners who believe in us.”