The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

With Chavanel, IAM will be on the 2014 Tour

Nick Nuyens wins 2011 Ronde Van Vlaanderen ahead of Sylvain Chavanel.
Expert
23rd August, 2013
3

Sylvain Chavanel has ridden the past 13 Tours de France, winning three stages on the way. In joining Pro Continental team IAM, Chavanel has no intention in letting that record end.

French national time trial champion Chavanel is 34 years old and still has some competitive years ahead of him yet.

His five-year love affair with Belgian team Omega Pharma-Quick Step came to an end this week with the announcement that he had signed a two-year deal with the Swiss IAM team of Heinrich Haussler.

With OPQS signing sprinter Mark Cavendish this season and GC rider Rigoberto Uran for next year, Chavanel’s chances of being anything more than a super-domestique in the service of these two thoroughbreds looked rather slim.

“I realised during the last Tour de France that it was perhaps time for a change,” Chavanel told French newspaper L’Equipe.

“There was less of a free role available for me in a team which was very much built around Mark Cavendish.”

A stage winner from 2008 and 2010 (twice), Chavanel helped Cavendish to two sprint victories but, save for the odd dig, did not feature prominently in many breaks in this year’s Tour – although he did test his legs on the stage to Alpe d’Huez on Bastille Day.

With Tom Boonen the Belgian team’s number one rider for the classics and Uran giving OPQS yet another option in the Grand Tours, Chavanel’s move was always on the cards.

Advertisement

But while his departure is not so surprising, Chavanel’s choice of a new team perhaps is.

Chavanel said he accepted IAM’s offer over other potential moves to Movistar, Ag2R-La Mondiale and Cofidis, claiming that “the Swiss from IAM were the best choice”.

(Interestingly, he also alluded to being happy about riding Scott bikes for the next two years – despite his good relationship with Specialized, which saw him being given as a birthday present this year a special custom-made orange bike to match his Chevrolet Camaro).

Only officially launched in January of this year, IAM Cycling currently only have 23 riders on their roster and have picked up just six wins so far in their debut season.

Indeed, it was their stylish jerseys that made more of an impression early in the season than any stand-out results.

Managed by former French road race champion Serge Beucherie, IAM did not feature in any of the three Grand Tours this year – although they did receive a wild-card entry for Paris-Nice, with Haussler managing two top tens finishes in bunch sprints.

Owner Michel Thetaz clearly sees in Chavanel not only someone who can make an impression in the classics but also the week-long stage races.

Advertisement

Crucially, however, Chavanel – along with French OPQS team-mate and friend Jerome Pineau, who has also signed as part of the package – could well be a bargaining tool for IAM as they bid to gain wild card entry to the Tour de France next season.

The additional signings of BMC’s Mathias Frank, Roger Kluge (Net-App Endura) and Vincente Reynes (Lotto Belisol) will help IAM’s cause too.

The WorldTour and wildcard team situation remains very much up in the air at the moment.

Like Europcar, IAM have decided to remain at the Pro Continental level for 2014 and will not be putting in an application that would guarantee them participation in all three Grand Tours.

Throw in the demise of Euskaltel, which will fold at the end of the season, and Vacansoleil, which is 95 percent certain of following suit, and all of a sudden the UCI go from the embarrassing situation of having 19 WorldTour teams to just the 17.

Given their performances this past season, it’s hard to see either Sojasun or Cofidis being given the final berth.

As with Europcar, finances are an issue and neither team could commit to having the requisite squads of 25 riders.

Advertisement

But while Europcar – despite their barren Tour – have so far notched 21 wins this season, Sojasun have just the four (plus a major sponsorship concern) while Cofidis have just the one more.

It’s way too early for South African team MTN-Qhubeka to put themselves forward for a WorldTour spot, while as romantic as it may seem, it’s unlikely Colombia-Coldeportes will be upgraded – particularly if they lose some of their major names following an impressive Giro d’Italia.

Chavanel and IAM, it seems, have played their cards just right.

While they won’t be too concerned about competing with fellow Italian Pro Conti outfits for a place on the Giro (a race, after all, that Chavanel has never participated in given his preference for structuring his season around the spring classics and Tour) IAM will have serious ambitions to force a change in the way ASO go about picking their wildcards and getting the nod for the 2014 Grand Depart in Yorkshire.

Christian Prudhomme has always shown faith in selecting French teams for the wildcard spots – although this year hinted that MTN-Qhubeka had come into his thoughts following Gerald Ciolek’s victory in Milan-San Remo.

But the UCI’s poor handling of the Katusha affair last year meant an 11th-hour reprieve for the Russian team, forcing ASO to select just the three wildcards for the Tour: Europcar, Sojasun and Cofidis.

With only one of those teams pretty much guaranteed a place next season – plus with another WorldTour place up for grabs – IAM and Chavanel must fancy their chances.

Advertisement

Both Chavanel and Pineau are very popular riders in France and the idea of a Tour without the national time trial champion and someone with such attacking flair as ‘Chava’ will not appeal to Prudhomme.

With Daryl Impey doing so much to South African cycling (albeit via the conduit of Orica-GreenEdge) by becoming the first rider from Africa to wear the Tour de France’s yellow jersey, then MTN-Qhubeka will see the Tour as a realistic target too.

So, perhaps next July we will even see two non-French wildcard teams in the Tour de France.

Signing one or two more Frenchmen would not go amiss – particularly with MTN-Qhubeka, who currently have none on their books – but things are certainly shaping up nicely for IAM.

Neutrals will certainly enjoy seeing Chavanel being able to ride the spring classics for himself and not as back-up for Boonen – while the prospect of a repeat of Chavanel’s attacking 2010 Tour, where he won two stages and wore the maillot jaune twice, is very appealing.

I’d go to the extent in saying that it makes sense for ASO and French cycling in general to have IAM in the Tour over a poorly performing Cofidis or Sojasun.

Lots more will happen between now and next season, however – starting with the Vuelta, this Saturday.

Advertisement
close