Bet on cycling

The French AG2R La Mondiale team did not win many major races in 2009 and was struck by injury to several key riders but the season was still a success thanks to Italy’s Rinaldo Nocentini wearing the leader’s yellow jersey at the Tour de France for eight days.

In the past Cyril Dessel, Martin Elmiger and the Efimkin brothers Alexander and Vladimir have won races and been key team leaders but they were all affected by crashes and injuries in 2009.

Fortunately other riders stepped in to fill the leadership role. Nocentini also won a stage at the Tour of California, Nicolas Roche won the Irish national road race title, Nicolas Rousseau won a stage at the Route du Sud and Ludovic Turpin won a stage at the Tour de l’Ain. Tadej Valjavec’s ninth overall in the Giro d’Italia was one of many consistent placings and the team also stood out in the peloton for its radical new jersey design.

Team manager Vincent Lavenu has been running a major team for over a decade. He has shaken up the AG2R La Mondiale line-up for 2010, adding seven new riders. These include Belgium’s Kristof Goddaert and Frenchmen David Le Lay and Anthony Ravard. Current French National Road Race Champion Dimitri Champion will also ride for AG2R, showing the special red, white and blue in the 2010 UCI ProTour.

“We got some good results in key ProTour races and the Tour de France was special for us but injuries to some of our leading riders affected our results,” Lavenu explained.

“I hope we can be luckier in 2010 and regain the natural winning instinct that we’ve always shown in the past.”