“Reverse the trend”: Groupama-FDJ United wants to boost the race across Flanders

“I wasn’t initially planned but I’m coming as a replacement, given that we have a lot of injuries in the team. That’s good, it’s a race that I like on paper. I’m coming to get some marks on this course, I’m going to try to take part in a movement race even though we know that it’s never easy here. But I hope to be able to find myself in a small group at the front.

Honestly, I have my card but I have to find my bearings and the form. At the start of the season, I didn’t have the form that could allow me to play up front. But I hope it will come little by little. It’s not the easiest race to play my card but I hope to soon be able to combine form and opportunity. In any case, the team is not blocking me on this. HAS”

B. COSNEFROY

“It’s never easy, groups are often formed and it rarely happens in a sprint. We have a good team, we already showed it at E3 and in Ghent. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been very successful so far in terms of results so we will try to reverse the trend today (Wednesday) by getting a big result for the team.

We have several runners who are doing well, whether it is Axel (Huens), Valentin (Madouas) or Thibaud (Gruel). We don’t necessarily have a privileged leader today, we will try to play several cards. The goal is to have a guy in every shot, hoping to have one who can play for victory at the end.

For my part, if I have a card to play, it must be in the chain of mountains, particularly in that of Trieu. I hope that it will settle down from afar and that the lighter punchers will be able to make the difference there. But there will still be a lot of road to the finish and paved areas. It will be very tactical, too. HAS”

R. GRÉGOIRE

“I feel good, we prepared well for the Classics. We haven’t had too much success since the start of this Classics campaign while the team has been collectively very strong since the first Belgian races. We are still outnumbered in the finale, but the little extra is still missing. When there are around thirty runners left, there are still four or even five of us each time, that’s a good sign. I hope that things will quickly change in the right direction. We will try to be more dynamites than followers.Â

Personally, I feel good. I did some big training sessions before E3 so maybe I lacked a bit of freshness afterwards. I was frustrated at E3 in fact, I was in the match but something was missing and I suffered too much. I want to play in the final here, we want to get this big result. I didn’t run on Sunday to keep a bit of freshness this time.

The Tour of Flanders remains the one that suits me best, between the profile and the distance. I feel good physically. HAS”

V. MADOUAS

“We come here with a great team. It’s an important period for the team, it’s the final stretch before the Tour of Flanders. We have a lot of fit men here, we will try to take advantage of the collective. We will have to run in place and seize the opportunities that present themselves. For my part, given the guys lined up, I will be in a supporting role, even opportunistic, but I will obviously not be the privileged card. HAS”

A. ZINGLE