After an active winter on the transfer market last year, with amongst others the arrival of new captain Nick Nuyens, this year team manager Eric Boyer has again been busy to recruit new riders. No big signings this year, but he has been able to add some useful riders to his team (Portal, Brard, Dumoulin) and has just like the other French teams been aiming for the youth. The Estonian Rein Taaramae is a very good investment, just like Romain Vila. It’s likely that the other neo’s Demaret, Blain (already 27 years old!) and to a lesser extend climber El Farès will have more trouble to find their way at the highest level.


If you want to be negative, you could even say there is a quality loss in the team. Moreni was suspended for doping, Parra went back to Columbia. The Columbian couldn’t bring, except for his Giro success, what was expected of him. Prologue specialist Wiggins had enough of the guidelines he got for his career on the tracks, so he went to Team High Road, where he can fully concentrate on Olympic success in Beijing.


Nonetheless, the Brit did get all possibilities to focus on last year’s Tour prologue in London. He had a reasonable result, but to sacrifice half a year for a fourth place? Two other English speaking talents, Farrar and Sutton, were also left out of the team, and judging by their results at the start of this season, Cofidis let them go too soon.


The mentioned additions are only good for the supporting strength. Chavanel finally seems to be able to perform on a constant high level, but will not make it in the top five of the Tour. Another French talent, Moinard, seems to get gradually better, but has been passed by many riders of his generation by now. Luckily for the team, Moncoutie finally seems to be on his way back. He is one of the strong riders of the team, but not very consistent. Duque is a good sprinter in the second line, but besides that the success will have to come from the Belgian part of the team. Monfort is gradually becoming a top rider and Nuyens is one of the main competitors in the spring classics.
In short, the team has a nice mix of nationalities with some very useful riders. But the real top specialists are absent, so they'll have to hope for the occasional success.


In
Florent Brard, Sébastien Portal (Caisse d'Epargne), Samuel Dumoulin (AG2R Prévoyance), Alexandre Blain, Jean Eudes Demaret, Julien El Farès, Rein Taaramae, Romain Villa (neo)


Out
Frédéric Bessy (retired), Michiel Elijzen (Rabobank), Tyler Farrar, Chris Sutton (Slipstream), Geoffroy Lequattre (Agritubel), Bradley Wiggins (Team High Road), Iván Parra (Colombia es Pasión Coldeportes), Cristian Moreni (suspended)