Cycling World Championships: France “as an outsider” with Alaphilippe, Bardet and Madouas

Julian Alaphilippe, Romain Bardet and Olympic vice-champion Valentin Madouas will be the spearheads of the French team for the Road World Championships in Zurich, coach Thomas Voeckler announced on Friday.

Julien Bernard, Romain Grégoire, Pavel Sivakov, Rudy Molard and David Gaudu complete the selection of eight riders for the road race which will take place on Sunday September 29, while Bruno Armirail and Thibaut Guernalec will compete in the time trial on the program starting this Sunday with minimal chances of a medal.

“Given the difference in altitude, it wasn’t even an issue. I hope that Christophe will have other courses that will suit him better,” explains coach Thomas Voeckler, who considers that his team has “allure” even if it does not have in its ranks a super favorite like the Slovenians Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel or the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, reigning world champion.

“We’re not showing up with the strongest rider in the world. We shouldn’t take people for fools,” insists Voeckler. “We’re also not showing up with the status we had at Imola or Leuven (in 2020 and 2021, during Alaphilippe’s two world titles). We’re more outsiders, especially on this type of course. Over the course of the year, a good number of riders are superior to us. But that doesn’t mean we’re not ambitious, quite the contrary…”

The French team will be attentive to the different movements of the race to react according to the scenarios with climbers like Bardet, Gaudu or Sivakov or more punchy riders like Alaphilippe, Madouas or Grégoire on a course which looks a bit like that of the hilly classic Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

On the other hand, there will be very little hope of a medal as Rémi Cavagna, the “TGV of Clermont-Ferrand”, was once again left stranded. “He is having a somewhat complicated season,” notes Voeckler. “We are not going to the World Championships to point. I explained it to Rémi and he understood it very well.”