Cofidis has replaced team manager Yves Sanquer with former rider turned TV pundit Cedric Vasseur, citing poor results as the reason for the switch. Sanquer is the second Cofidis manager to suffer such a fate after he replaced Eric Boyer in mid-2012 due to a lack of results. Rumours around Sanquer's departure from the team have been floating around since last season.
Cofidis is one of the long-standing teams in the professional peloton, riding under the same sponsorship since 1997. For many years, the French team raced at the top of the sport with multiple Grand Tour stage wins and the Vuelta a Espana’s mountains classification on four occasions thanks to Davide Moncoutie. However, since 2010, they have been competing at Professional Continental level and have relied on Cofidis’ sponsorship of many top events to secure wild card entries. The team won just 13 races in 2017.
Sprinter Nacer Bouhanni joined the team in 2015 to much fanfare but the erratic Frenchman has largely missed the mark in his grander ambitions. He won seven races and topped the UCI Europe Tour ranking but his only WorldTour victory was a stage at the Volta a Catalunya in March. His Tour de France was hit by a nasty crash at the Tour de Yorkshire that left him with concussion.
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“In an ever more competitive sporting context, professional cycling teams must find the driving force that will enable them to sustainably guarantee their continued place at the highest level of the sporting pyramid,” a statement from the Cofidis team read announcing the change of team manager.
“For our team, which evolves on the European continental circuit, we require a wild card for the main events of the WorldTour circuit every season. The only way to achieve this is to be an essential team, thanks, in particular, to indisputable sporting results. This has, unfortunately, no longer the case in recent years.
“The results were not at the expected level, and the media visibility of Cofidis is being affected. It was urgent to get the team back on track, with a new project and on a new basis. For that, it needed a man who best embodies this new drive. Cédric Vasseur will be the new General Manager of the team.”
A former Cofidis rider
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