After turning down offers from BMC and Quickstep in the past, Cedric Vasseur has finally taken the plunge and moved into team management, replacing Yvon Sanquer at Cofidis. Once a rider for the struggling French team, Vasseur is hoping to bring a new way of thinking to the squad, with a more aggressive style of racing, greater focus on professionalism and hope of getting the best out of Nacer Bouhanni on his list of priorites.
Top of Vassuer’s to-do list will be to install a new mentality within the French team. Their last Tour de France stage win came almost a decade ago and since then Cofidis lacked both organisation, star-quality, and the necessary approach to win consistently on the biggest stage.
In recent years the team has put their efforts into supporting Nacer Bouhanni, and while the sprinter has won the lion's share of their victories since moving from FDJ, the team have failed to provide a suitable back up plan and an alternative. Cofidis finished second in the UCI Europe Tour rankings and Bouhanni topped the Europe Tour ranking but only five other Cofidis riders tasted victory in 2017, and other than Bouhanni, only Anthony Perez won more than once.
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“The challenge, and it’s the same for every team, is to create the right spirit,” Vasseur told Cyclingnews.
“If you have the right spirit then you have the base to win races. It’s true that the team lacked an image in terms of victories and I think the sponsors were expecting a few better results. When you’ve got one of the best sprinters in the world in Nacer Bouhanni then you should expect victories at the highest level but they weren’t really coming. Professionalism is also going to be really important because I feel like we’re bringing in a new project.”
“What I want, and what I’m waiting for is for the team to win both with and without Nacer. It’s not all about Nacer but in the last few years it’s all been centred on him and it’s meant that other riders have lost their winning instinct. If you’re working for just one rider then you’re never going to be in a break, and that has to change. I want to see a team that’s more aggressive. I want to see the Cofidis jersey in breaks and this will help take the pressure off Nacer. He’s a great rider, and he’s the leader of the team but by putting all the pressure on his shoulders the team lost a lot of races.”
Taking the pressure of Bouhanni
Being ahead of the curve
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