JULY 2014 - Tour de France - stage 1: Leeds - Harrogate
The start of the Tour de France was a milestone for us. The Tour de France was just so big, I couldn't have imagined this before. The squad I had came up with consisted of Wiggins, Bouhanni, Duvivier, Hansen, Rémy, Barguil, Devenyns, Nerz and Simon Yates. I thought it was a perfect mixture of experience and youth. Mainly climbers but with two strong sprinters, too. So now that we were here, what were our goals? For me it was simple, I was ambitious here...
We were in the team bus, it was less than 2 hours before the start of the race. I had gathered all the riders and the staff there. I gave them the speech of my life. Unfortunately, I can't recall my exact words from then, since it was improvised, but what it came down to was the following: we're here as a team, as a strong team. Let's give everyone something to talk about. I talked specifically to Bouhanni, telling him I have absolute confidence in him. He can do this. With this team, I said, we can't be happy unless we return home with a stage victory. But more than that, why not try and take the Maillot Jaune for a few days, put our team in the picture. Most of all, show that Bunzl - Centrica came here to race.
And then we were off, with a first stage destined for a mass sprint...
As we thought, it came down to a sprint finish. But it was no ordinary mass sprint: the terrain was slightly uphill and the wind was blowing hard, head on. Boonen was launching Cavendish but I thought it might be too early!
Meanwhile, another big talent was showing its strength for the first time on this level. Julien Duvivier brought Nacer Bouhanni on the other side of the road, pushing his legs harder than every before against the wind. It was mindblowing to see, it looked unreal.
It took everyone by surprise and what I had hoped for so badly came true. It was a turning point in our season. We forgot all about that 15th place in the UCI team standings. From that day forth, we thought of ourselves as the number one! One - Two on stage 1 of our Tour de France. No team has ever done something like this before!
As the most beautiful bonus we could ask for, Nacer took the Maillot Jaune for tomorrow. It would only be for one day, but it was the most beautiful jersey I'd ever seen.