The extended battle to kind a part of the WorldTour in 2026 when the following set of licences are granted is already in full swing, it appears. However for TotalEnergies Supervisor Jean-René Bernadeau, not like many different groups, the query of whether or not his ProTeam can get a promotion to biking’s prime league will not be an goal in any respect.
That is to not say it is an unrealistic aim, although. As of the most recent UCI rating, TotalEnergies are presently positioned fifth better of all of the ProTeams, behind Lotto-Dstny, Israel-Premier Tech, Uno-X, and Tudor Professional Biking. The French squad might subsequently simply be able to maneuver to the WorldTour on the finish of the next season.
Nevertheless, in a prolonged interview with Velofute, Bernadeau argued that somewhat than consider UCI factors, his staff’s 2024 Tour de France stage victory with Anthony Turgis, their first within the Tour since 2017 with Lilian Calmejane, was “price all of the factors you may probably want for”.
Simply to make it crystal clear, Bernadeau then added categorically, “we do not have a look at factors”, and mentioned that when it got here to a struggle for a WorldTour slot, he was “completely not” interested by collaborating.
There are a number of causes for Bernadeau’s willingness to swim in opposition to the tide in the case of preventing for the WorldTour. However in line with Bernadeau, one specific challenge is a regulation that “creates a hierarchy linked to UCI factors, as a result of it was modified to specify that solely the highest 20 riders in every staff would have their factors counted.”
“Consequently, groups with 30 riders plus a stagière for when anyone on the principle squad will get ailing, have a better likelihood, mathematically talking [of being higher up the ranking]. In our case, we have misplaced that exact race even earlier than it is began,” he mentioned.
Bernadeau moreover expressed concern that some groups “purchased their approach into their place into the WorldTour” through signings. This was not like TotalEnergies, a staff that invested closely in its personal newbie and U23 infrastructures and initiatives to deliver on youthful riders and put together them for skilled racing.
“There’s all this chatter about shopping for contracts, shopping for riders, about groups that ‘purchase their place’ within the WorldTour. I do not need the phrase ‘purchase’ to kind a part of our vocabulary,” he insisted.
“We have to kind riders, recruit them and develop a challenge. Our staff has that sort of challenge primarily based on colleges with sports activities research within the city of La Roche sur Yon, with the Vendée U [amateur cycling team] after which the professional squad.”
Nevertheless, Bernadeau hinted strongly that the TotalEnergies/Vendée U infrastructure was a species at risk of falling out of the highest authority’s international imaginative and prescient of the game.
“The place can we match within the UCI’s plan? Are we essential for them?” he requested rhetorically. “We won’t change, we now have a sponsor who backs us, we now have up-and-coming riders and we get an actual sense of enjoyment about all of it, as effectively.”
Though his staff is without doubt one of the longest surviving in biking, Bernadeau argued that the comparatively latest emergence of recent professional squads like Tudor and Uno-X was the ‘raison d’être’ of sport, displaying that new initiatives within the sport have been viable.
“Is not the WorldTour heading in the direction of being a closed circuit with simply 18 groups?” he requested rhetorically. “I do not suppose the Bernadeau [team] of 2000 might have existed immediately.
“The system we now have brings collectively race organisers, the actors who’re the groups and one authority, the UCI, which has to manage over all of that, and to have a imaginative and prescient of what our sport shall be within the years to come back.
“I am fortunate sufficient to have a really highly effective sponsor, but when tomorrow they demanded that I win the Tour, we might possibly do it by amassing factors and prime energy outputs. However it will really feel insipid, colourless. So I am not doing it, and neither is my sponsor.”
Extra than simply outcomes
Slightly than overly concentrate on outcomes, Bernadeau recognised he was fortunate to dwell in part of France, the Vendée, which allowed him to create loads of native social initiatives for younger riders throughout the area, each promote sport generally and produce on youthful abilities for the professional groups.
“There are quite simple issues that may be performed and which rely on the Vendée’s authorities to hold them out,” he advised Velofute. “And we will do them: issues like bike mortgage schemes, closed-circuit races…
“On the similar time, the skilled groups want to grasp they are not outcasts. For the time being, when a rider turns professional some golf equipment who shaped that rider do not even get a telephone name in recognition for what they’ve performed, the funding they’ve made. They do not get something.”
Retaining the strains of communication fluid between the groups at completely different ranges, in addition to serving to construct social initiatives to advertise bike racing within the Vendée is considered one of Bernadeau’s objectives.
On the different finish of the racing spectrum along with his skilled staff, TotalEnergies, Bernadeau’s objectives prolong to doing in addition to attainable within the Tour de France. The staff’s Tour was a notable success in 2024, he mentioned, with Turgis’ stage win on the pavé stage to Troyes only one excessive level of a number of.
“We did an excellent race this 12 months, we had plenty of younger riders within the combine, I believe that Mathéo Vercher did an impressive Tour,” he mentioned in regards to the U23 rider in his first-ever Tour, stepping into three breaks and inserting second in a single stage. “We have been positively at an excellent degree.”
