Looking for sponsors and investors to save his team Arkea-B&B Hôtelsthreatened with disappearance following the cessation of the two titles partners at the end of the year, Emmanuel Hubert couldn't really hope for better advertising and windows than with this Tour de France 2025 ! At the foot of the wall, the Breton team paradoxically achieved its most beautiful Large loop From a sporting and collective point of view since his first participation in 2014. If there was certainly no stage victory as last year, we only saw red and black throughout these three weeks around the new darling of the French public, Kévin Vauquelin. The Norman impressed in the first half of Tour Before valiantly resist in the mountains to afford a 7th final place in Paris, but in its wake, it is also the whole team that has set up and was an actress, as evidenced by their 4th final place in the team ranking, just that!
“We agree that this team should not stop”
Happy manager for the best French training in this Tour 2025, Emmanuel Hubert necessarily pulled at the microphone of Cyclism’Actu A more than positive assessment of this edition, while having good hope that this success will save its team and prevent it from stopping at the end of the year.
Emmanuel Hubert, if you had been told all this before departure, what would you have said?
I would have said of course: “I sign”. For the simple reason that the team behaved super well, with a 4th place in the final team ranking. This is almost more than I remember that the rest, because that means that the team works well. She has a soul, she has a life. Admittedly, Kévin was the spearhead and the leader of this team, but I believe that everyone fought well around. Beyond the Costiou, the Garcia Pierna, Mathis Le Berre, who will have a big future I am sure, I also remember an Arnaud Démare, who has certainly not made the sprints, but which was a very very good road captain. With all that was asked about the flat stages, it was obvious that it could not work for him in the sprints. But he didn't think about him, and he did a great job these days to place his leader and his team.
With what you have accomplished on this Tour and this year, this team should not stop, we agree?
We agree that this team should not stop. Today, we must keep this patriotic spirit, this somewhat “small teams” spirit. This is life, that's France, and the happiness we give to the French, I think that it is important not to stop like that.
If there is a message to send to possible investors, what do you tell them?
To investors who listen to me, I want to tell them that French cycling is doing well, we have champions, runners in great future which are not necessarily there on this Tour de France. You have a Kévin Vauquelin which is certainly promised to make very good general classification. And he's a guy of the Tour. So I want to tell investors: Come!
What would be your greatest pride today, knowing that you are very dicret?
I am not necessarily a media man, I am more in the shadows. What I want … I am not for me that I fight. The concern, it is for me daily, and it concerns the staff, and after the runners. There are still 150 people who are at the end of this channel.
Is there chances that it will continue?
I think yes, because I always see the glass half full, and not empty. I am also a peasant from birth. And as long as it is not signed at the bottom of the page, I have to remain moderate in relation to my ambitions.
What can you wish for the future?
Let us be on the Tour de France 2026.
