Cycling: Kévin Vauquelin, Lenny Martinez, Axel Laurance… The French recipe for training the great runners of tomorrow
It’s all about cycles. Best world nation in 2020, France fell to 7th in the UCI rankings at the start of the 2024 season, leaving the top five for the first time in ten years. But the slope should be recovered quickly, thanks to the meteoric rise of several promising riders destined to become the headliners of French cycling. After what appears to be a generational trough, the French teams seem to have found the recipe for making champions, and the ingredients are numerous.
Lenny Martinez (20 years old) has already raised his arms four times this season, Kévin Vauquelin (22 years old) came close to victory over Flèche wallonne, Paul Magnier (20 years old) won his first race under the colors of the Soudal Quick-Step, Romain Grégoire (21 years old) and Paul Lapeira (23 years old) each won a stage of the Tour of the Basque Country… Among riders aged 23 and under, France is the best nation in 2024, and these young shoots once again dominate their foreign counterparts.
In the wake of Tadej Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel or Juan Ayuso, athletes are maturing earlier and earlier, as in many other sports. “Every year, there is a big progression of young peopleobserves Maxime Bouet, former runner and sports director of the French team Arkéa-B&B Hôtels, interviewed by franceinfo: sport. Some already live as professionals very early on. Today, junior or even cadet runners have access to all the high-level parameters, whether in terms of nutrition, training, recovery…” But France, lately, is going even faster than the other major cycling nations.
Axel Laurance, among the rare French people who chose a foreign team (Alpecin-Deceuninck), is one of the faces of this renewal: “For me, it’s not a surpriseasks Mathieu van der Poel’s teammate. I’ve known the boys since I was in cadets. We are a generation that is pulling itself up. The level was already very high among the juniors and we are climbing the steps together.” Healthy emulation within a generation that is certainly above average.
Jean-Baptiste Quiclet, performance director at Decathlon-AG2R, also sees this new wave as an epiphenomenon: “There was a little generational gap, but that is the lot of many nations. (…) When you aim for the very high level, you need exceptional athletes. Exceptions, by definition, we don’t have them every year.” But talents, no matter how brilliant they may be, must be polished. The French teams are working on it, providing more and more resources, and allowing the emergence at the highest level of these riders.
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