Thus we come to that historic ole French team, Cofidis. Their heyday was all the way back in the way back in the early 2000s, but still the same title sponsor Cofidis has stuck around. For the past decade, their funding has not been to the extent of the mighty or average World Tour teams. Though always invited to the Tour and the Vuelta, for almost a decade they’ve had little results to show for it. And yet last year, their resolve was reinvigorated to win big again, to return to those heady days of old so already steeped with legend that fact and fiction can no longer be untwined. For 2020 they increased their payroll and rejoined the top echelon of the sport as a World Tour team, and they signed some big names.
The biggest signing last year was the Italian sprinter Elia Viviani. But alas! last year was a season to forget for the man: zero victories. He went from Quickstep’s top sprinter taking victory after victory in races big and small, and yet last year the wheels seemed to fall off for he was anonymous in many of the races. He is only 32, surely he is not too old yet, let us blame the bad season on the lockdowns. Let us say he had not the proper amount of time to gel with the team. Let us hope this season Elia shows off his talents better, may he prove the keys to his success come not just from Quickstep alone.
And what about their revelation GC rider? Guillaume Martin stepped up a level last year at the Tour de France. For the first half of the race he was in the top 3 on GC and even vying for stage honors; remember on Stage 4 when he almost won the ferocious mountain-sprint to the top of Orcieres-Merlette? Martin could not string together the phenomenal form for the full three weeks, but a month later he came back and won the King of the Mountains Competition at the Vuelta…O! how I was rooting for him to take a stage win at that race! He is nicknamed Socrates, for outside of cycling is a philosopher, surely an appealing and eye-catching hobby to have outside of the sport. But all the philosophy in the world is not needed to figure out what Martin’s top task must be this season: to win a race. A stage, a stage race, anything, Martin is a rider of high quality and he needs a result and victory celebration of high quality to go with it!
Cofidis has signed over Simon Geschke, surely he is a quality domestique or mountain breakaway specialist: perhaps he can show Socrates Martin how it is done to take a great victory. The Spanish Herrada brothers, Jesus and Jose, are back for more. These two with Geschke and Martin could be a formidable quadron in any proper mountain stage. Christophe Laporte has already gotten off the mark and taken a victory this season on the opening Besseges stage with its short, steep vertical finish. Shall he be a lead out man for Viviani or shall their calendars not cross? Surely, he’s proving to be on good form and a man for the steep little kicker finishes. And what of the rest of the lineup? Haas, Edet, Perez, Perichon, Wallays, and the others, what shall they accomplish this year? Shall they take stunning victories of their own, or help their team leaders win themselves?
Cycling Odysseys 