Tony Gallopin might not have experienced the mania of Tour de France success like he did in 2014, but he feels he came a long way last year and is eager to continue his progression this term, to a point where he is standing on the podium of a monument.
The Frenchman, who won a stage and held the maillot jaune at the 2014 Tour, might have had less eye-catching wins last year, but he feels his consistency over the course of the season as a whole made it an even more pleasing campaign. Having won a stage at Paris-Nice early in the season, he went on to record top-10 finishes at Milan-San Remo, Amstel Gold Race, the Grand Prix de Québec, the World Championships and Il Lombardia.
“The Tour is so important that if you do a good Tour then all of a sudden it becomes a great season, but I think for the season as a whole it was better in 2015,” Gallopin told Cyclingnews after a training ride in Mallorca, where Lotto Soudal have gathered ahead of the season.
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“I managed a level of consistency in the one-day races, and that’s really important for me. It’s there where I’ve progressed a lot and where I want to continue in the future as well.”
There has been talk of Gallopin, a true all-rounder who was sixth overall at Paris-Nice last year, developing into more of a general classification rider, one who could compete over three weeks. That theory was given weight at the 2015 Tour, where he went in with the mere ambition of winning a stage or two but found himself in and around the top 10 right up to stage 17 and the Alps.
“The first summit finish which Froome won, I stayed at the front just to try it out and I was up in the top 10 with all the top riders, so we said ‘Ok let’s do the Pyrenees’, and that went well, too. By the second rest day I was still 10th on GC and the team was showing real faith in me,” explained Gallopin.
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