Four in the top nine of the Dauphiné: the Tour de France looks good for the French with less than two weeks to go, on August 29 in Nice, with Thibaut Pinot as headliner.
Thibaut Pinot: on time
The Franc-Comtois of the Groupama-FDJ team finished the tired, frustrated and legitimately disappointed Dauphiné with his second place behind the unexpected Colombian Dani Martinez. At 30, he again missed out on a first major victory in a major stage race on the WorldTour calendar. For the rest, all is well … except the absence of his lieutenant in the mountains, David Gaudu, with thwarted preparation. “We had not set a result at the Dauphiné”, underlines its sports director Philippe Mauduit, who recalls the essential: “He is in the lap times.”
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We must now negotiate without error the transition to the Tour, that is to say recover and pass without incident the French championship next Sunday in Brittany on which Pinot would gladly have overlooked given the nature of the course. His team has planned a return by private plane on Sunday evening in order to limit fatigue.
Julian Alaphilippe: satisfied
“I’m not playing the general, I’m here to win a stage,” he announced before the Dauphiné. If he missed the boat in the last two mountain stages, he reassured his world for his first major cols in competition since the resumption.
“I’m not 100% but if I recover well from this week, things will get better and better,” said the puncher from the Deceuninck team. Omnipresent at the front of the race, he especially made efforts that should pay off in the Tour de France. The fighter of July 2019 has everything to start again on the same bases.
Romain Bardet: reassured
The Auvergnat, sixth in the final standings, has gained in strength over the days as he hoped. He especially removed the doubts he harbored after his fall at the beginning of the month: “My training sessions were mixed, so it is a very good point of passage for the future”.
“It’s a good week,” he summed up. With the big reserve that his team AG2R La Mondiale, transparent in his heart race, won only by him in this Dauphiné. “The individual record is very satisfactory for Romain. But we will need a strong collective to surround it on the roads of the Tour ”, agreed its sports director Julien Jurdie, perplexed by the transparency of his men.
Guillaume Martin: encouraged
Objective exceeded for the Norman who signed the best performance of his career by climbing on the podium of the Dauphiné (3rd). At 27, he is well on his way to making a place for himself among the best climbers in the world through regular and rational progression.
“It is far from having reached its maximum”, welcomes the general manager of the Cofidis team, Cédric Vasseur, who sets the goal sought in the Tour. “We recruited him for the general classification, eventually a top 5. But this year, he will focus on a stage victory.”
Warren Barguil: content
“I am happy to finish this Dauphiné on a positive note”, commented the champion of France, ninth in the final standings after a last stage which saw him in clear recovery. Overall, he could not play to the end with the best but the signs of a rise in power are undeniable.
What role will he play on the Tour? The answer depends in part on the leader of his team Arkea-Samsic, the Colombian Nairo Quintana, who chose to quit on the last day due, by his own admission, to a “strong pain” in his knee. However, the Nice meeting is near.
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