In 2007, the Crédit Agricole Pro Cycling team was ranked 1st in the French Cup team standings, 1st place rider overall Tour de Langkawi, and finished the season 15th in the Pro Tour final team points classification. The team finished 8th team overall at the Amgen Tour of California 2007 & won the KOM Leader’s Jersey.

Returning for their second year at the Amgen Tour of California with a squad of 8 riders, including the only returning rider Cyril Lemoine, Patrice Halgand, Jonathan Hivert, Julien Simon, Christophe Le Mevel, Yannick Talabardon, Australian Mark Renshaw, and Lithuanian Ignatas Konovalovas.

I met with the team before the embarked on the few last training riders before the start of the race to get their impressions so far.

Cyril Lemoine, 25
What did you tell your teammates about this race?
That it was a hard race and that you shouldn’t take it lightly. It’s a good race, it’s like in France. There are a of teams, and the course itself is more difficult than last year. It is a good level, and when we get back to France, it gave us a good rhythm, it’s a good preparation.

What did you like last year?
The muffins (laughs), everything that was the organization. It is really well organized, and even compared to some French races, it’s even better. The weather is nice, it’s all good for early season races.

What are your goals for the year?
I’m doing the Belgian Classics, so I’ll try and do well there, and of course I’ll try to win a few races during the year, we’ll see.

Julien Simon, 23

What are your goals for the Tour of California?
Win like everybody else. It is my first year as a pro. My goal this year is to get used to the level, and get better, help the team and if possible win, but we’ll see.

Jonathan Hivert, 23
What are your goals for the Tour of California?
To do a good race with all the team, simple, nothing more, nothing less. We are coming in somewhat blind, these is one (rider) that has already raced here, so he knows a little bit, but we are not home so we don’t know the stages.

Christophe Le Mevel, 27

What are you goals for this race?
Preparing for the start of the season for my goals that stay le Tour de France, this year’s goal. I thing it’s going to be a good preparation, the level is pretty high I think, it’s a good field in any case, I think it’s going to go well.

Did Cyril tell you anything about the race?
A little bit, but we saw the stage profiles et it is pretty hard too. I hope that… after a race in France, the Etoile de Besseges, the form seems to be present, I hope everything will go well.

What’s on your calendar after the race?
After this, I travel to the Ivory Coast in March, and after I tackle the ProTour races, le Tour du Pays-Basque, le Tour de Romandie, Catalogne, Dauphine Libere and the Tour. It’s a nice program.

Yannick Talabardon, 26

What is you goal for the year?
The goal…trying to return to form a little bit at a time, I would like to do Paris-Nice but that depends if we are invited for Tirenno-Adriatico but before I need to be in good form for the Tour of California, which is a race with a better field every year, more and more difficult, getting more interesting every year, so I’m happy to be here.

Was there a competition in the team to come here?
No, not specially because at the start of the season everyone is going everywhere. It’s true that we heard good things from riders that had been here before and I wanted to participate and even better, it’s an 8-day race. Pretty interesting with time trials which is not my specialty, a little bit of mountains which is bit more my specialty, sprint finishes, it’s pretty varied, pretty complete making it good for the rest of my season.

Are you focusing on any particular stages?
Non, there are champions here, some really good riders. It’s true that the Wednesday stage, I think, the hard stage will be interesting but I’m not racing to win that one, I’m going to discover and see what happens.

What’s your calendar for after the race?
I don’t know yet, it depends, Paris-Nice or Tirreno, we’ll see, one of the two races.

What did Cyril tell you about this race?
He told us… that you shouldn’t think of this of a vacation here, the speed is very, very fast and that it is a good preparation for the big ProTour races and that it was really quite interesting and that the weather is really nice.

All photos copyright Larry Rosa Photography.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 8:47 am and is filed under Crédit Agricole. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.