The 1st step of Tour de France Saturday June 29th… and a disastrous day for the Groupama-FDJ. The French team did not place a rider in the top 50 of the stage and has already lost all hope in the general classification. Alone Valentin Madouaswho escaped for a large part of the day, was able to make the jersey of the formation shine Marc Madiot.. while Lenny Martinez, Romain Grégoire and especially David Gaudu exploded very far from the finish.
Video – Valentin Madouas, at the finish of this 1st stage
“David Gaudu has simply not yet recovered from his Covid”
“The objective was to take the breakaway today”confided Benoit Vaugrenardsports director of the Groupama-FDJ at the arrival. “Valentin was very motivated and we didn’t know what could happen behind us, especially given the heat. We had to try. David Gaudu just hasn’t recovered from his Covid yet. Given his feelings over the last few days, we knew it was going to be complicated. He wasn’t able to train as he wanted, and given the level, the difficulty of the course and the heat, we suspected it was going to be very difficult. He was still weakened. It would have taken a day on the plains to start, but it’s the race.”
“We expected better, obviously. We hoped that Romain would be in the first group and that was not the case. It’s the disappointment of the day.”continues Vaugrenard. “We’re going to take the race day by day, David has to get back into the rhythm first. Then we’ll see what we can do. We hope he’ll recover and move forward slowly in this Tour. For Valentin, it’s encouraging. We’ll have to continue on this path, being offensive, but we’ll have to target the stages carefully.”
