No one has forgotten his tribute to Marco Pantani, former Tour de France winner, who wore the famous bandana on the Milan Cortina track, as well as a silver loop on the ear that belonged to the “Pirate”. Biathlete Émilien Jacquelin, Olympic champion with the men’s relay, is living his childhood dream. He is joining the Decathlon CMA CGM development team for six months. “Being part of a World Tour peloton would be something unimaginable, incredible. I will do everything to try to get closer to that level,” explained the 30-year-old skier from Villard-de-Lans, on the Stade 2 show.
Examples before him
On paper, this could seem like a marketing move by the Decathlon team, which has excellent riders like Paul Seixas, but Émilien Jacquelin has practiced cycling at a good level in his adolescence. “The race program has not been established yet. It talks about the Tour du Limousin (August 18-21), but first, I will rest (in April). Then three months of pure training to try to race in August,” detailed the skier, with a height of 1.86 m and weighing around 80 kg.
Cycling is full of examples of athletes who have passed through other disciplines. For example, American Eric Heiden, five-time Olympic speed skating champion at the 1980 Lake Placid Games, participated in the 1986 Tour de France, although he did not finish it.
Norwegian Per Strand Hagenes excelled in skiing in youth competitions before becoming a junior world cycling champion and now being under contract with Jumbo Visma, an example also followed by his compatriot Jørgen Nordhagen, announced as the new Jonas Vingegaard, Tour de France winner. Cross-country skiing legend Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who won eleven gold medals at the Olympics, could also join the Uno X team in the coming weeks. And it also works the other way around. Laurent Jalabert, former Vuelta a España winner, has become one of the leading French triathlon specialists.
