SAINTÉLYON 2024 – The recently retired cyclist Lilian Calmejane took part in the legendary SaintéLyon trail this weekend for an honorable 36th place.
He surprised everyone at the end of the 2024 season. After his last pedal laps in China, Lilian Calmejane put his bike back in the garage, at only 31 years old. The stage winner of the 2017 Tour de France then preferred to end his career rather than suffer a slow decline and fall into the anonymity of an increasingly strong peloton. He also spoke of a lack of personal fulfillment and a certain weariness on the roads.
A reconversion to trail running?
And such was not our surprise last Saturday when we saw the Tarnais on the starting line of the terrible SaintéLyon. Obviously, the former rider of TotalEnergies (Europcar and Direct Énergie at the time), of the AG2R structure and of Intermarché-Wanty still seems to have ants in his legs. In a completely different type of effort, he braved, like 8,000 other runners, the cold and the Rhone night. For a very honest result since the Albigensian, not accustomed to this format of races, took 36th place in an event won by Thomas Cardin.
However, it is far too early to talk about retraining for Calmejane who finished 1h20 behind the winner, far from the Elite level. That being said, it is not necessarily his objective and perhaps he is simply thinking of having fun, after a difficult professional career and all the constraints that result from it. After all, have we not seen the great Thibaut Pinot in a small 24 km Vosges trail last April?
