![\"'It\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CORVOS_00038445-065.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
News & Racing<\/a><\/p>\n A portion of the French team is at the Tour of Guangxi closing out the squad’s final-ever racing kilometres.<\/p>\n Numerous emotions coalesce in the rarefied air of the Tour of Guangxi. At the stage start in the ancient city of Jingxi, which skirts the Vietnamese border in the south-west of the country, you have the tired pros ready for the off-season and bright-eyed neo-pros on their first-ever voyage this far east. Then you have those suffering a more existential crisis, as the ground underneath their professional lives begins to give way.<\/p>\n With Lotto and Intermarch\u00e9’s merger submitted to the UCI<\/a>, two will likely become one with a Thanossian click of a bureaucratic finger in an Aigle boardroom. Levity aside, half of these two squads present in China, sitting side-by-side in adjoining tents underneath the still-hot October sun, have little chance of being here, or anywhere in the professional bike racing world, next year. In fact, given the predilection of WorldTour teams to send a bomb squad for this final race of the calendar, the survivors here are likely to be in even lower number.<\/p>\n And then there’s Ark\u00e9a-B&B Hotels, the French squad that has been very open about its struggle to bring in new financial backers after both Ark\u00e9a (co-operative bank and insurance group) and B&B Hotels (… a hotel chain), and have finally relinquished hope that they will be able to continue into 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We already knew the situation was complicated for several months,” Ark\u00e9a sports director S\u00e9bastien Hinault told media including Escape at the Guangxi start in Jingxi. “[Team boss Emmanuel] Hubert was searching for backers for the team for more than a year. We were hoping for a reaction from a sponsor who was maybe hesitating, but you can see that the economic context isn\u2019t easy and we couldn\u2019t find a sponsor to go again next year.”<\/p>\n This post is for paying subscribers only Already have an account? Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n \n \ud83d\udc4dYep![\"Jonny](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/jonny-long-7898-2-aspect-ratio-99-99-150x150.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CORVOS_00038445-072.jpg\")
Jenthe Biermans hits the deck as the peloton lines up to salute the retiring Arnaud D\u00e9mare at his final race, the 2025 Paris-Tours.<\/p>\n
\n Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n
\n \ud83d\udc4eNope\n <\/p>\n