With promotion to the Pro Tour for Ekoi - Le Creuset and winning the PCT division more money was needed for the team and Renault came in as new name sponsor with Le Creuset taking a step back. Their commitment to cycling in general, and French cycling specifically did not go away just because "their" team became more succesfull and with that came the idea of a development team.
The rules of the MGUCI however did not allow Ekoi - Renault with support from Le Creuset to just create a development team by themself. The rules about development teams are very spesific and that is where the big shock.
Just one season ago a loud, annoying and arrogant upstart team was started in France, in the continental division. They started yapping (just like those small dogs you know who can never shut up) and talking up to what can only be called their big brother in French cycling. Somehow they managed to promote to the PCT, pretty much taking Ekoi - Le Creusets (now Renaults) place as a French PCT team. They didn't do it silently and the enomosity between the teams didn't grow less when Renault came in, considering they where sponsored by Peugeot.
Thats the reason for the big shock, when everyone thought French cycling was just going to be a dramashow and soap opera. Peugeot decided to join the Le Creuset project, in what is called "The French Peace" or "The French Kiss. Together the teams have an intention of developing French cycling for the future
Le Creuset will join the CT division as a development team and have just 8 riders, 2 specially signed to help the young riders develop, 1 rider selected by a third party (McCormick Pro Cycling) and 5 talents specially selected by Ekoi - Renault and Peugeot. The talents selected to get this special opportunity to develop their cycling skills is not the riders who can easily get a Pro contract, in fact one of the rules for development teams is that they couldn't have recieved an offer from any professional team. That means the biggest and best known talents of France (Gregoire, Isidore, Martinez, Magnier, Gruel etc) will not be part of the team, even though the focus is to develop talents.
The goal of the project is of course for some of the talents to develop to a level where they can get a proffesional contract, and thus both teams have commited to giving one rider each a chance to fight for a contract for next season. Who will prove to reach the level needed for that? And will the competition even help others also get a pro contract in the future?
The team
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
OVR
Age
Doubey
70
73
74
74
58
70
70
69
54
66
68
62
59
58
73.24
33
Pinot
65
73
70
67
58
66
69
61
51
55
59
65
60
58
69.16
36
Labrosse
68
55
58
60
58
70
64
59
68
64
64
69
58
57
67.17
24
Boulahoite
69
63
64
63
64
69
70
65
65
62
70
68
70
68
67.50
22
Tronchon
65
57
63
68
58
69
68
68
57
66
69
63
66
60
67.55
24
Faure-Prost
68
63
65
62
57
63
65
64
59
59
68
70
70
55
65.07
22
Morang
68
57
62
64
63
68
69
65
66
64
70
69
71
62
67.58
22
Davis
67
64
65
66
60
69
67
66
66
66
71
65
68
60
68.26
27
Pinot and Doubey are the road captains of the team, experienced French riders who has many years in the peloton. They have agreed to join to help develop the talents and at the same time try to get some results. With them the team will most likely focus on mountains and hills.
Labrosse is an exciting cobble talent, he is however not big fan of mountains and climbing. His strenght lays on the flats and in longer races
Boulahoite is another interesting talent with strenght in long and flat races, but he is also good on shorter prologues and got a good acceleration
Tronchon is more of a puncheur talent with some sprinting ability. He is also one of those riders who prefer long races and got a strong stamina already
Fure-Prost is more of a rolour who looks to be able to develop some climbing ability to top it off. He is a strong attacker and more of a breakaway rider than the others
Morang is the odd one out with Peugeot also having some focus on Luxembourg. A flat and cobble rider who looks to have somewhat of the same profile as Labrosse.
Davis is the McCormick addition on the team, and while Morang is not French he is from a neighbouring countrey, Davis comes all the way from the other side of the pond. He is an allrounder and apart from the road captains the most experienced and oldest on the team
I really like what you and those nice dudes at Renault are doing for French (and Luxembourgish ...) cycling! It's also nice to see a McCormick rider on board as well, it just gives the international touch
But seriously: I'm glad the cooperation worked well so far and we were able to bring back both Le Creuset in a cool role as well as Pinot for a last hooray. And while other Devo Teams obviously went more for optimizing results I really like the focus on actual development, although I wouldn't mind the odd podium
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