Tour de France: Bouygues eyes stages
- By Andrew Hood
- Published Jun. 30, 2008
- Updated Jul. 2, 2008 at 8:14 AM EDT
Bouygues Telecom will start the Tour de France with a squad loaded with stage-hunters and almost no one for the overall classification.
The French team will be headlined by Thomas Voeckler, remembered for his heroic defense of the maillot jaune in the 2004 Tour, and Pierrick Fédrigo, winner of a stage in the 2006 Tour.
The team is betting on winning a stage rather than wasting energy in a futile fight for the overall.
Last year, Spanish attacker Xavier Florencio Florencio, winner of the 2006 Clásica San Sebastián, led the way for the team’s GC hopes with 46th, nearly two hours off the winning time.
The team brings the same exact squad as in 2007, with the lone exception of Anthony Geslin being replaced by Russian phenom Yuri Trofimov.
The young Russian, who will be riding on mountain bikes at the Beijing Summer Olympics, won his first professional road race in high style by attacking over the Joux-Plane to win alone into Morzine during the Dauphiné Libéré in June.
Bouygues Telecom for Tour de France
Stef Clement (Nl)
Pierrick Fédrigo (F)
Xavier Florencio (Sp)
Laurent Lefèvre (F)
Jérome Pineau (F)
Matthieu Sprick (F)
Yuri Trofimov (Rus)
Johann Tschopp (Swi)
Thomas Voeckler (F)
FILED UNDER: Road / Tour de France TAGS: Tour de France
Andrew Hood
Hood cut his journalistic teeth at Colorado dailies before the web boom opened the door to European cycling in the mid-1990s. Hood's covered every Tour since 1996 and has been VeloNews' European correspondent since 2002. He lives in Leon, Spain, when he's not chasing bike races.