It is an understatement to say that the Tour de France of the Cofidis was certainly not up to expectations. With Dylan Teuns, Alex Aranburuor Bryan Coquard Initially, the northern team could have shone on many grounds but chained the fate and the counter-performance that reduced their ambitions to nothing. In full struggle for maintaining WorldTour, the total starry of 155 UCI points gathered in three weeks (in fairly far the worst assessment of the 23 training courses at the start) hurts … Despite everything, the manager of this team, Cédric Vasseur wants to be optimistic for the future, especially the rest of the season. After the 21st stage, he returned to the microphone of Cyclism'Actu on this Tour de France Quite unsatisfactory for him and his team, and on the next objectives of the season.
“We come out frustrated and saddened”
Cédric, we are at the arrival of the Tour, we had seen at the start, there are no victories but in the end?
It is true, a little disappointment because we were waiting better for Cofidis on this Tour de France, maybe we expected too much with the departure of Lille. We went well in this tour, with Benjamin Thomas who went to get the polka dot jersey on the first day and then we had a series of adventures that was against us. Fall of Benjamin Thomas and fracture of the coast, we did not say it because we have hoped that he finds all of his means but on the tour is difficult, we had this flight of bikes, the jasper Philipsen controversy with Bryan Coquard, we also had members of the staff who had the pain of losing their dads during the Tour de France, on two occasions. Despite this, we still kept your head high and this morning, at the last briefing we said “the guys you have to try to finish on a good note” and hat to the runners because today, Alex and Dylan were both in the yellow jersey group.
We come out frustrated, saddened but at the team level, we are ready to redouble their efforts. The proof is that Oliver Knight today went to seek his first victory with professionals at the Tour of Wallonia so it's always a great moment of emotion to see a runner winning his first race in his team. We had Jesus Herrada who flirted with the victory by finishing second in Spain. We reversed the trend, we were in a negative trend and there we found a smile, we found a dynamic team that goes ahead, which runs to win and I am convinced that on races like San Sebastian, our Basques will be there. You have to turn the page on the Tour de France, take a step back and try to understand why it didn't work.
To come back to the Bryan Coquard episode, what a class, what respect and what courage.
Absolutely, this is a great lesson. For us it was a great loss because Bryan took everything in his figure for nothing, he did not ask anything from anyone, he made no mistakes. On the other hand I think that he became even more popular after this episode, unfortunately he broke his finger by taking a musette when it was he who had made a race movement. We suffered a lot from his absence on the end of Tour de France because Bryan, even if he is not a climber, he served the interests of the team, he boosts the team.
We know your outspokenness, Tadej Pogacar don't you like?
Yes, I like it, I just regret when it is at the start because we have no chance of winning. It is a cannibal, it is the Eddy Merckx of modern times. He is a talented runner, hat to him but obviously, when he is at the start we know that it is lost and we are above all there to try to win. It would be good if he decided to zap the Vuelta, that he was world champion in Rwanda, that doesn't bother us. He disappointed me today because he did not win on the Champs-Elysées, in terms of symbols, see the yellow jersey win on the Champs-Elysées I think he must be disappointed. You can only admire it.
