{"id":408203,"date":"2026-01-12T11:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T11:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408203\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T11:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T11:46:11","slug":"it-is-simply-a-matter-of-the-teams-survival-groupama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408203\/","title":{"rendered":"“It is simply a matter of the team\u2019s survival”: Groupama"},"content":{"rendered":"

“We never spoke about it. We started races to win them, not to score points,” Sporting Director Philippe Mauduit said in quotes collected by Sudouest <\/a>regarding the team’s previous approach.”2025 didn\u2019t live up to our expectation in terms of wins or world ranking,” Cornec admitted during the team presentation. “For 2026, the objective is simple. We want to win more often \u2013 more than 20 wins \u2013 and win better, by winning again on the Tour de France and getting back into the top 10 overall with David Gaudu<\/a>.”To achieve those goals, the team is relying on its proven climbers. David Gaudu<\/a>, who finished 4th in the 2022 Tour de France but had a difficult 2025, will return as a leader. He will be joined by Guillaume Martin<\/a>, who is known for his consistency in three-week races and is often a reliable source of UCI points, which is exactly what the team needs right now. Martin will have a busy calendar, as he is also scheduled to race the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a in August.<\/p>\n

While the sporting challenges are exciting, at the end of the day the teams have to pay attention to the UCI points they score, as that is how the system works. A slow start to the 2026-2028 cycle could be catastrophic, and Groupama-FDJ United cannot afford another year like 2025 if they wish to remain in the top tier.<\/p>\n

Gr\u00e9goire, echoing the new management’s sentiment, emphasized that the team can no longer be naive about the points system. “It\u2019s important to get off to a good start right away so that we\u2019re in contention for UCI points, then it won\u2019t be an issue anymore and we can focus on winning,” he explained.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that the team’s comfortable position in the past is gone, and they must adapt to the new reality. “Before, we were fortunate enough not to have to worry about that and not to be concerned about it. Now there has obviously been a change. But it\u2019s an important issue because it\u2019s simply a matter of the team\u2019s survival.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“We never spoke about it. We started races to win them, not to score points,” Sporting Director Philippe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,211256,196503,216235,182181,215480,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-408203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-david-gaudu","12":"tag-groupama-fdj","13":"tag-guillaume-martin","14":"tag-marc-madiot","15":"tag-romain-gregoire","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}