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AG2R La Mondiale 2015 season review

Christophe Riblon for AG2R. (Image: Sky).
Roar Guru
8th November, 2015
4

It felt like just yesterday the 2015 cycling season had a finished an already we are just over two months from the first World Tour race of the new season. So what better time to start reliving the highlights of this year’s season.

Over the course of the next two months, I will be reviewing each of the World Tour teams performances.

The first team to have their season analysed is the strong French outfit of AG2R La Mondiale, who finished just outside the top 10 in the UCI world ranking.

Over the past couple of years this team has shown themselves to be building something special, especially after the performances of both Jean Christophe Peraud and Romain Bardet at the 2014 Tour de France, so it was expected that they would have another strong season. Some riders on the team had break out years, but for others it was quite different.

This season started off fairly slow for the team, with no performances to really catch the eye. They would have been particularly disappointed with a highest finish on GC of 14th place with Romain Bardet at their home race of Paris Nice.

Though, a few weeks later, Italian climber Domenic Pozzovivo claimed a solo stage win and third on GC at the Volta a Catalunya, finishing only five seconds off the eventual winner Richie Porte.

With such form heading into the Giro d’Italia (he also won a stage of the Giro Del Trentino in a lead up race), Pozzovivo was the main man for the team in terms of stage wins and a general classification tilt, but these chances were shattered after the Italian was involved in a horrible crash which left him lying motionless and eventually retiring from his home Grand Tour.

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Pozzovivo is a rider who has the potential to finish top three at a Grand Tour if everything goes right for him. Hopefully 2016 will see him back to his best.

After the disappointment of the Giro, the next two months of racing would see two French talents, one we were very much aware of (Romain Bardet) and a new talent give AG2R massive wins on home soil.

The Criterium Du Dauphine offered up a teaser for the riders heading to the Tour, with the stage to Pra Loup identical to the one which would be used a month later at the Tour. Bardet got in some early form, and attacked on the top slopes of the preceeding climb, and descended the Col d Allos brilliantly to hold off the field on the final six kilometre climb to Pra Loup.

The performance of Bardet on the final descent will stick long in the memory of anybody who witnessed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XMfV-jBvJ0 Cut 30 minutes into the video to see Bardet attack away solo.

At the Tour, it was expected that Bardet would again be the main man, but he was upstaged early on by a fellow Frenchmen in Alexis Vuillermoz. After finishing third on Stage 3 up the short and steep Mur De Huy, he went even further on Stage 8 to attack strongly away from the world’s best up the Mur De Bretagne to win solo ahead of the field.

This win was no fluke, after finishing top 10 at Fleche Wallonne earlier in the year. He also went on to win the first test event on the roads of Brazil that will be used in next year’s Olympic Games Road Race.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOTajCEiuiU

Bardet added another victory on Stage 18 to the summit finish of St Jean de Maurienne, beating compatriot Pierre Rolland from the break of the day by over 30 seconds.

After losing big time on the first tough mountain stage on Stage 10, Bardet did well to finish in eighth position overall, and third in the King of the Mountains competition, making up for the unfortunate accident of Pozzovivo at the Giro, and the underperforming Jean Christophe Peraud.

At the final Grand Tour of the year, another young Frenchmen shined brightly, as Alexis Gougeard won solo from a large breakaway on a tough Stage 19. This started a fabulous month long period for him, as he also won the prologue and general classification at the Tour de l’Eurométropole.

Another solid season for the best French team in the peloton. They are consistently performing at Grand Tours, and with the three young Frenchmen coming through mentioned above, they may well start to really challenge in some of the punchy one day races.

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A team to watch intently next season.

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