“It didn’t work at all, but that’s racing,” Madiot told
Cyclism’Actu. “It’s a shame, there were a lot of punctures in the same place,
so we can imagine that there might have been nails thrown on the road. It’s not
great. It ruins a day, you know. It’s a shame. Paul Penhoët had a puncture, so
it was over.”
“It was the ideal sprint for him, on a false flat uphill
like that, it was the best we could have hoped for. I’d been thinking about it
for a long time. We knew he was pretty good, so we really relied on him today.”
That plan came apart in seconds. “At the end, we had zero
points. Anyway, the Tour continues. Tomorrow, there will probably be another
opportunity, but it’s a sprint that suits us less, I think. If I remember the
finish correctly. After that, we’ll see.”
It sounds incredible to say, but Groupama have now not won a
stage at the Tour de France since Thibaut Pinot’s incredible stage win on the
Tourmalet in 2019…six years ago now.
Madiot didn’t hide how much the day had meant to the team.
“But no, I’m very disappointed. Very, very disappointed. Frustrated and
disappointed, both, because it’s a lost opportunity, you know. There was a good
card to play today, Saturday.”
With the GC riders keeping the pace high and fewer
breakaways sticking, opportunities are slim. Still, Madiot insists they’ll keep
pushing.
“We’re going to try to get to the restart, but there are a
lot of people who want to go for the breakaways, and there are few breakaways
who go. So we’ll see. Everyone wants to be in front, and then the big guys
don’t let anything pass. So it’s complicated. But that’s racing. Anyway, if we
don’t try, we won’t get anything. So we have to try, try to be opportunistic,
but it’s not easy.”