Bryan Coquard will be spending July eating Merguez, after all. At the Criterium du Dauphine, the French sprinter joked about how he hoped he wouldn’t be spending July barbequeing sausages. But while he might not have fully believed Direct Energie team manager Jean-René Bernaudeau’s threats to leave him out of the Tour de France, the reality came crashing home on Monday when the final line-up was announced.
“I’m very disappointed. I really wanted to be part of the gang. I’m very sad, really emotional. It really meant so much to me to do the Tour de France,” Coquard said, giving his reaction exclusively to the Ouest France newspaper.
Coquard, the team’s leader and prized young talent, came within a whisker of winning a stage at the Tour de France last year, but doubts about his participation this year emerged when he told his team he wanted to pursue his career elsewhere from 2018.
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Having come through the team's amateur set-up, Coquard said Bernaudeau felt "betrayed" and "hurt", yet the long-standing manager has defended his approach, saying it was a “purely sporting choice” to leave Coquard at home. At the Dauphiné, he put out the slightly absurd ultimatum that Coquard had to win, or beat Arnaud Démare, to prove himself worthy of a spot at the Tour, and Coquard hasn’t been able to deliver.
“At the start of the season, Bryan was very strong and he was, logically, the leader of the team, but it’s been several weeks now that he has done nothing,” Bernaudeau told Le Parisien on Tuesday.
“At the Critérium du Dauphiné he didn’t even trouble Arnaud Démare in the sprints. And at the French nationals on Sunday he wasn’t even able to stay on Démare’s wheel. That was the instruction given to him. At some point you have to be objective and look at who is good and who isn’t.
Cutting off his nose to spite his face
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