Groupama-FDJ cycling team – In 2021, a team structured to win on all fronts

For its 25th official presentation, Groupama-FDJ cycling team has renewed its exercise by offering it to the general public for the first time thanks to a new digital format. Surrounded by animators Denis Brogniart and Louis-Pierre Frileux as wel as six of his riders, Marc Madiot, General Manager of the team, returned to a 2020 season marked by 21 victories. He then presented his team's ambitions for the next season. To each his own ground, to each his qualities for a single watchword: each time compose the team capable of winning on all fronts!

On set, Marc Madiot began by looking back on a 2020 season shaken by the health crisis and by the forced end of the competition calendar. Thanks to the reaffirmed confidence of the two title partners, Groupama and FDJ, the team remained mobilized throughout the season, which Marc Madiot and the riders did not fail to salute. Each Pole of the Groupama-FDJ cycling team, at its level, has worked to ensure that the group is competitive from the start. It was on this breeding ground of confidence and team spirit that the group was able to set off again in August on a reshaped schedule.

21 victories have rewarded this work, making Groupama-FDJ cycling team the most
prolific in the French peloton and the 4th internationally. A large part of the score goes to Arnaud Démare who, with 14 victories including a French Championship and four stages on the Giro d’Italia (from which he brought back the cyclamen jersey for best sprinter), is the rider in the world who has won the most in 2020. The Swiss Stefan Küng is not to be outdone, crowned Swiss Champion on the road and in time trial, then European Champion in the discipline before winning bronze at the World Championship! These victories are the culmination of the seriousness and precision of the rider, perfectly supported by the technical partners concerned.

On the Grand Tours side, David Gaudu has established himself at the highest level of the climbing hierarchy by winning two stages in the Vuelta. As for the Tour de France, marked by the heavy crash of Thibaut Pinot from the first hours of the race, it will have revealed the great tenacity and courage of a rider but also of a whole group which has never given up, until the Champs Elysees.

“Take the start every morning with the means and the desire to win”

For Marc Madiot, this mobilization and this sense of collective effort are the great learnings of 2020 and the foundations of the 2021 season. Each Pole of the team has continued to expand, learn, innovate and develop. The winter allowed the sports direction to work on tailor-made programs so that each of the 30 riders had a race that  to their talent and sporting characteristics.

Thus, it is with determination and ambition that Thibaut Pinot will return to the roads of
the Giro d’Italia, the first drafts of which herald a very mountainous course. Before that, he will have big winning goals like Tirreno Adriatico and the Tour of the Alps. Starting every morning with the means and the desire to win, these are also Arnaud Démare’s goals. He will be the strong man of a Tour de France richer in sprinting   than in its 2020 edition. Surrounded by his enviable train, he will also tackle the Tour La Provence and then Paris-Nice.

Stefan Küng, with new time trial titles in the lead, has built with the sports direction a 2021 plan in progress, from Flanders Classics (on which he excelled in 2020) to the national, continental and world time trial championships, where nothing will be left to chance. The Tokyo Olympic Games, for which he will seek a selection, will undoubtedly be a beacon throughout his season, just like for Benjamin Thomas.

David Gaudu will continue to evolve among the greatest climbers of the peloton. He will be lined up for the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in Brest, at home. Co-leader of the team alongside Arnaud Démare, he will seek to reproduce the same level of performance as in the Vuelta 2020, in terms of the general classification and stage victories. He will be accompanied in particular by his longtime acolyte, also from
‘Bretagne’, Valentin Madouas. The latter, on whom expectations are high, will also be in charge of the group on the Ardennes Classics. Called on to greater responsibilities, he has the full confidence of Groupama-FDJ cycling team, with whom he has announced that he has re-engaged until the end of 2024.

Finally, Marc Madiot praised the work of his Continental team, whose help and support
were more than precious during a 2020 season with many challenges. The bridge between the two entities, which materialized throughout the season by reinforcements of the riders of La Conti in the ranks of the WorldTeam, allowed the arrival of three new talents at the highest level: the Briton Jake Stewart, Frenchman Clément Davy and Dutchman Lars Van Den Berg. Since its creation in early 2019, this has brought the number of La Conti riders who have joined the ranks of the Groupama-FDJ cycling team to six.

Winning together, leaving nothing to chance, working seriously on terrain that corresponds to everyone, these are the axes presented by the Groupama-FDJ cycling team during this official presentation of 2021. Marc Madiot reminded us, ’30 riders, a jersey, two committed sponsors and 22 partners to bring the performance to life: in 2021, thanks to our collective, whatever the race, the team will win’.