The main native contender for the Tour de France, David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) has stated that he shall be driving the upcoming Grand Boucle with none particular targets on the GC classification.
The Groupama-FDJ racer was the best-placed Tour finisher for the host nation in each of the final two editions, inserting ninth in 2023 and fourth in 2022.
The Frenchman shall be racing within the Mercan’Tour Traditional Alpes-Maritimes this Wednesday, previous to heading on to the Critérium du Dauphiné. He’ll need to guarantee a robust sufficient efficiency, significantly after final 12 months’s below-expectations trip in the identical race, offers him a lift going into the French Nationals after which above all, the Tour de France.
Relating to the Tour itself and what he can obtain there, Gaudu advised L’Équipe on Wednesday that he “was not establishing any particular limitations.” Slightly than put stress on himself to get on the rostrum like he tried, and did not do, in 2023, his thought can be to guage through the race itself what he may obtain.
“We’re going to take issues as they arrive and attempt to be extra offensive,” Gaudu stated. “If I’m eighth or ninth on the finish of the primary week, I hope I’d have the ability to get within the breaks, even when it means I then crack and drop again to fifteenth or twentieth total.”
“What I’ve no intention of doing is sitting up and shedding time deliberately within the first few days.”
After struggling one crash in O Gran Camino through the recon due to robust winds and one other in Paris-Good, Gaudu deserted on the final stage with sickness. He then crashed once more within the Itzulia Basque Nation and suffered a deep gash in his hand that pressured him to desert.
His luck rotated with a win within the Tour du Jura and after a lowkey trip within the Tour de Romandie, and a three-week coaching camp on Teide, Gaudu is now again in racing this Wednesday on the Mercan’Tour.
“It’s a very good Traditional to do as a result of there aren’t that many for climbers,” Gaudu noticed, in regards to the race which covers 80 kilometres of stage 20 of the Tour de France.
Requested whether or not he had watched the Giro d’Italia and if he felt interested in it due to the much less managed model of racing, Gaudu agreed.
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“It’s not essentially a nicer racer than the Tour, however you may see that it provides extra freedom of manoeuvre.”
“However the Tour remains to be the Tour, the best race on the planet, so I must be there, even when it’s extra chained down and there are extra groups retaining a lid on issues.”
“However there are additionally days the place it’s potential to make some strikes. That doesn’t occur on a regular basis, however it may occur, when you have the legs and the boldness and the celebrities align.”
(Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
The challenges of 2024
2024 has not been a simple 12 months, Gaudu recognised, “however I’ve at all times been in a position to get again up. If I didn’t nonetheless have that ‘mad canine’ mentality, I wouldn’t have attacked on the foot of the Mont Poupet climb within the Tour du Jura [a race he won in April].”
“That was possibly the day the place I’ve felt probably the most liberated, the place I simply advised myself ‘go for it and see what occurs.’
Nevertheless, within the Tour, moderately than stage wins, his greatest aim shall be “to stay with the GC favourites so long as potential. GC racing is what makes me dream.”
“I’ve already been up there in Paris-Good” – inserting second in 2023. “I’ve additionally positioned fourth within the Tour the 12 months earlier than. Two riders” – Tadej Pogačar and, assuming he races in July, Jonas Vingegaard – “are a stage above the remainder, and one has proven that greater than ever within the latest Giro d’Italia, so we all know they’ll be within the thick of the motion. We’ll should see the way it performs out on the bottom.”
Gaudu can be on the comeback path on the Dauphiné, the place he completed an unremarkable thirtieth final 12 months. However he defined that moderately than struggling the implications of an overload in coaching like in 2023, this time spherical his latest altitude camp had been primarily based on very particular coaching duties and he hoped to be in higher form because of this.
There then stays the largest problem of all of them, the Tour, the place Gaudu stated his goals, albeit not essentially this 12 months, remained very formidable.
“My dream is to get on the rostrum within the Tour. My greatest dream can be to win it, however you must be reasonable, that might be very, very sophisticated,” he advised L’Équipe.
“The rostrum is far more possible, even when that’s very onerous too. Liege, the place I completed third again in 2021, stays my dream Traditional to attempt to win. However in [stage racing] GC battles I’ve nonetheless obtained some good playing cards to play, too.”
