Since the end of the Breton training, the dust has settled a little.

The memory of a few days of anguish remains.

The bitterness for those who have not found refuge elsewhere, forced to point to unemployment, to go back down as an amateur or to retire hastily like Cyril Gauthier and Pierre Rolland.

And cold anger for Audrey Cordon-Ragot who should have been the figurehead of the women's team supposed to be an integral part of the large-scale project imagined by manager Jérôme Pineau, before everything collapsed for lack of finding a sponsor. .

For Axel Laurance, 21, and Franck Bonnamour, 27, the story ended well.

"Almost a blessing in disguise," they told AFP from their respective internships in Spain, since they bounced back into a team with a superior pedigree.

The first landed in the Belgian team of Alpecin where he rubs shoulders with Mathieu van der Poel, one of the stars of the peloton.

"Already I see that it has nothing to do, it's much more professional", reports the Breton puncher, sitting on the terrace of his hotel in Pedreguer which offers hypoxic rooms simulating the effect of altitude.

The second was hosted by the French formation AG2R-Citroën.

There too "it's the upper echelon, I'm very happy," said the Costarmorican.

"I just wish, he adds, that it was done under different conditions."

The internship "paid by my mother"

In fact, "everyone was in shock" when Jérôme Pineau announced to his riders on December 2 that he was releasing them, his project taking on water, at a time of year when most teams have already complete their budget and their workforce for the following season.

Frenchman Axel Laurance in the colors of his new Alpecin-Deceuninck team during training in Vall de Ebo near Alicante in Spain on January 11, 2023 © JOSE JORDAN / AFP

"December is super late. You feel like you're being punished. You only think about it. You wonder where you're going to end up," Laurance recalls.

"I was on the phone all afternoon trying to find a team. Once I lost two in the same day" when Quick-Step, with whom he was in advanced contact, finally told him " that they didn't have the money", while he had just, "three hours earlier", said no to AG2R, convinced that he was going to join Julian Alaphilippe in the Flemish team.

"Suddenly, I had nothing left. In my head, I told myself that I was going to return as an amateur."

Financial level too, it pitches.

"We haven't had our last two months of salary. My mother paid me a week's internship in Spain in December. Mentally, it hurts."

Eventually, Alpecin came to the rescue.

But Axel Laurance will first spend a year in the development team before joining the World Tour squad (first division) in 2024, which was already complete this season.

"Held ostage"

Franck Bonnamour, who was with Axel Laurance the most popular B&B Hotels runner, was "reassured fairly quickly about (his) future".

But he too "didn't sleep well for a few days".

"Since I don't have an agent, I had to call the managers myself."

Audrey Cordon-Ragot with the Trek-Segafredo team during her title of French road champion, acquired in Morbihan on August 22, 2020 © Damien MEYER / AFP/Archives

In an interview with the Telegram, Audrey Cordon-Ragot denounced a "hostage taking" by Jérôme Pineau.

“For two months, we were taken for a walk,” she castigated, accusing the ex-manager of having sold the dream to the end – exponential budget, new recruits, new bikes, … -- by hiding the difficulties.

Axel Laurence and Franck Bonnamour do not want to shoot the ambulance but deplore the way.

"The way of doing things was not correct, regrets Laurance. Finding sponsors is complicated, as you can imagine. But we had no information. So a lot of runners thought that the team was going to leave ."

"We didn't expect it at all," confirms Bonnamour, who says he doesn't feel angry.

"But it might be different if I hadn't found a team. In the staff, among the riders, there are still a lot of people who no longer have a job."

© 2023 AFP