The French AG2R team had its team presentation, five days before the traditional French racing scene opening at the Grand Prix d'Ouverture La Marseillaise. The team wants to establish its place in the peloton and have at least as much success as in the past.
AG2R certainly has the names for good results. Rinaldo Nocentini, Vladimir Efimkin or Cyril Dessel have shown they do well in big races. And the team wants to make sure that the GP d'Ouverture on Sunday is not a repeat of the last two years, when French rival Cofidis won the race (through Rémi Pauriol and Hervé Duclos-Lassalle).
Team Manager Vincent Lavenu wants to guide the team from smaller races to bigger victories. "We have to win right from the start of the season in the big events, like Paris-Nice, in the grand international Classics, like Milano-Sanremo, Liège-Bastogne-Liège or Paris-Roubaix," Lavenu said at the presentation, according to leparisien.fr. Being a French team one thing is clear. "Of course we need to do a very good Tour de France."
Lavenue is well aware that the smaller budget will limit the team, but he won't consider defeat just yet. "We have to defend French cycling with strong values, and we want to shine on the highest level. That's the whole difficulty," Lavenue said with a smile.
AG2R La Mondiale has a budget of eight million euro, and is in the range of Française des Jeux. Some of the English speaking teams have twice as much, giving them much better options for riders, staff and material."
The riders on the 2010 team
French riders:
Julien Bérard, Guillaume Bonnafond, Maxime Bouet, Dimitri Champion, Cyril Dessel, Hubert Dupont, John Gadret, Sébastien Hinault, Blel Kadri, David Le Lay, Julien Loubet, Lloyd Mondory, Anthony Ravard, Christophe Riblon, Nicolas Rousseau, Ludovic Turpin
Foreigners:
Jose Luis Arrieta (Spa), Alexandr Efimkin (Rus), Vladimir Efimkin (Rus), Martin Elmiger (Swi), Ben Gastauer (Lux), Kristof Goddaert (Bel), Yuriy Krivtsov (Ukr), René Mandri (Est), Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita), Nicolas Roche (Irl), Gatis Smukulis (Est), Tadej Valjavec (Slo)