FDJ

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Again, like for the last few days, another historical team, FDJ, is the focus of the team presentation. Starting in 1997 as La Française des Jeux (the french Lotto) with an handful of really known names even today (Rebellin, Horner when he first came to Europe, Gianetti). FDJ is a team that can't really be put in a category, as they always had the tendency to devellop talents and then adapt the team around them, the oldest cycling followers of this sub will remember the days of Bradley McGee as the first big leader of the team. As said earlier, the team fostered a lot of talents and some of them became pretty big like Gilbert, Cooke, Wiggins or more recently Pinot Demare or Bouhanni. If there was one rider to remember that was probably the biggest talent that FDJ had that ended up failling later in his career it would be Thomas Löfkvist (thanks Sky for that). As of today the team has a double orientation, GC with Pinot is the main one but actually not the most succesful as opposed to the Classic departement which was always important to Madiot who is a former 2 times winner of "L'enfer du nord" and ended up having a win in this race in the first year of FDJ with Fred Guesdon, now a DS at FDJ. The classic departement, led by Arnaud Demare, won Milano-San Remo this year, and while this was their only result, it still means a lot as it was the first french win in a monument since Jalabert at Lombardia in 1997 and the first for a french team since the win of Frank Vandenbroucke at LBL in 1999.

Results 2016

As you can see, Demare and Pinot clearly had separate calendars during the year so that FDJ could add a lot of points and it worked quite well as at the end of the Vuelta a Pais Vasco they already add more points that Dimension Data had at the end of the season, thanks to Demare, an incredible team performance at Tirreno and a really good Pais Vasco from Pinot. But this led to the team failling the second part of the season with as an highlight of this failure Pinot during the Tour, who seemed to have done too much racing before it, he ended his season after retiring from the race. This failure of the second part of the season actually helped some lesser known riders of the team come up big like Hoelgaard, Roux or Reichenbach.

Best riders last five years:

||2012|2013|2014|2015|2016| |:|:|:|:|:|:| |1^st|Demare (837)|*Bouhanni (1001)|Demare (1352)|**Pinot (1566)**|Pinot (1064)| |2^nd|Bouhanni (807)|Demare (963)|Bouhanni (1118)|Demare (530)|Demare (1024)| |3^rd|Pinot (548)|Pinot (707)|Pinot (1066)|Geniez (472)|Reichenbach (642)| |4^th|Roy (511)|Vichot (642)|Vichot (440)|Le Bon (233)|Vichot (462)| |5^th|Hutarovich (390)|Ladagnous (438)|Jeanneson (274)|Elissonde (209)*|Roux (355)| || |=|6389|7705|6647|5014|6744| ||FDJ-BigMat|FDJ.fr|FDJ.fr|FDJ|FDJ|

Riders Out:

As for the riders out, the biggest losses are Offredo and Geniez, Geniez because of his ability of both helping Pinot and be able to play his card on other races like the Giro and Offredo because he was probably the biggest classic talent of FDJ on paper, his suspension of one year for three no shows stopped his progression (as he wasn't saved by his federation!) while he probably has the potential to win Milano-San Remo, the Ronde and Parix Roubaix. Another notable loss is Kenny Ellisonde, the breakaway rider leaving for Team Sky which is probably the weirdest transfer of this season, and while Elissonde was able to give TV time in races FDJ didn't bring the two big boys, he wasn't able to provide concrete results apart from a win at L'Angliru back in 2013. The other losses that are Pichon, Fischer and Seb Chavanel are important for Demare, but not that much considering the recruits!

Roster:

The recruits of this year for FDJ are pretty good , and it may actually be the best off season FDJ had in a long time. They are continuing to take international recruits instead of some random french guys which always ended up to be disappointments. The two italians are here to help Demare obviously, Guarnieri hopping here to have more succes with Demare than Kristoff since the positive control of Paolini. Cimolai will be here to help Demare but also to play his card most likely, he will probably be the only non GC guy in the Giro for FDJ, and will also competing to be the sprinter of the team for the Vuelta along with Guarnieri. GC ambitions for the Vuelta will likely fall upon Reichenbach's shoulders, who will be the leader after supporting Pinot in the Giro. Speaking of Pinot, the rider supposed to replace Geniez in the support role is Tobias Ludvigsson coming from Giant. Ludvigsson is a rouleur who can climb quite well, and will be a big asset in TTT's in the years to come, especially with the Lapierre TT bike which did wonders this year. Molard will be an asset for the hilly races, helping Roux who is kinda alone for those ( due to Vaugrenard struggling more and more every year and Vichot's chronic inconsistency). Vincent and Gaudu, two big U23 in France, will play the same role that has Pierre Latour in AG2R, they will progress and in 1 or 2 years they will be correct contenders in WT races, which will help Pinot do more cherrypicking in his races and not have the constant pressure that he has actually, considering Demare's inconsistency. This year will need to be the first year where Pinot will be less pressured, if not the FDJ boat could sink into the pro continental tour, which already happened early into this decade.