A start of the season in Australia, an express trip to Paris and the national velodrome of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, a detour via Switzerland before flying to Jakarta, and finally a detour to Cairo... At 24 years old, Clara Copponi leads the life of a globetrotter.
Blame it on her profession: racing cyclist.
And to his ambition: to climb to the top step of the podium at the Paris-2024 Olympic Games.
"Clara is someone who knows what she wants. Her goal is clear: she wants to bring back the gold medal on the track in Paris", confirms her manager at FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope Stephen Delcourt.
Cyclist to do "like his brother"
When asked why she chose to become a runner, the answer is obvious: “Win it! , it is precisely to surpass oneself and go to the end of oneself”, she praises.
This native of Aix-en-Provence has kept an accent from the south of France, where she lives on paper - "in fact, it's more of a furniture storage", she laughs, adding that the second motivation of his career choice is to "visit the world".
The bike, however, she came there a bit by chance, her father being rather a fan of another type of two-wheeler: motocross.
"I started cycling at the age of four to do like my big brother. He was mountain biking, I was mountain biking. Then he started the road, so I started the road."
And when Thomas Copponi took to the track to the point of becoming French junior champion...
In the velodromes, the 24-year-old blonde is used to competing in the American (also called “madison”) and the omnium.
In the first discipline, the goal is to complete 120 laps of the velodrome by taking turns with a partner while trying to take a turn from the opponents or win the intermediate sprints to save points.
The second is a combination of six track events.
It is adorned with silver that the pair Clara Copponi (right) and Victoire Berteau returned from the European championship of track cycling.
© Sebastien Bozon, AFP
On the road, Clara Copponi is a model teammate and sprinter for the FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope, the only French team in the World Tour, the highest professional division.
"The sprint is a family quality since my brother had it too. It goes with my surly side. What I like is to go into battle, to rub", sums up the young woman fiercely, during of his team's back-to-school conference.
A busy year and a logistical puzzle in perspective
And for "the win", the year 2023 of the "aggressive" promises to be dense, like the first three months described above.
She will combine her obligations on the road with the FDJ and the courses and competitions on the track with the French team and thus accumulate enough points to qualify for Paris.
Enough to cause some logistical headaches for his two teams.
>> To read also: Women's cycling, year 2: "We must continue to structure ourselves, otherwise everything can stop"
"[The FDJ] is super conciliatory with the France team. They try to prepare a schedule for me that allows me to rest," she explains.
But an optimal program is also a matter of choice, even if some can be heartbreaking.
It is therefore in the sprint that this 3rd edition of the Choralys Fourmies Féminine Classic ends, Clara Copponi makes her power speak and wins ahead of Valentina Basilico.
Maria Martins completes the podium.
pic.twitter.com/xWKmS6relT
– Actu CyclismeFéminin (@ActuCyclismeFem) September 11, 2022
"It was important for me to start my road season with Australia but the next race won't be until April. It's a big hole! But it's also a chance because I can practice the track and, if everything is going well, the qualification for the Olympics will then be acquired", explains Clara Copponi, who has already given up competing in the second edition of the Tour de France.
"Last year, I made it a goal and I was very disappointed not to be there, but I had been able to bounce back on the Tour of Italy. There, with the Worlds just after, it doesn't fit. You have to know what you want and what I want is to be Olympic champion on the track in 2024", slice the Southerner.
"You have to make an optimal preparation and there optimal preparation is to go to the Glasgow Worlds, because the dates will be almost exactly the same as those of the Olympics the following year."
Two complementary disciplines physically and mentally
"My two disciplines are complementary. The four-hour outings on the road strengthen my endurance for the track and to do the 120 laps of Madison. Likewise, the sprint also serves me for the track", she explains as a regular teacher. detailing the intricacies of track racing regulations.
"It's also complementary mentally. Having fun on the track allows me to cut, to fight against weariness".
"She's happy, it's about her personal development. Obviously, it's frustrating because we would like to have her on more races but at least when she comes back, she always comes back in good shape and with the desire. She comes back with this feeling of owing us something that pushes her to surpass herself", praises Stephen Delcourt.
"We could say in our contracts, 'you won't do a track'.
But it would not be in our interest: behind, how can we imagine renewing his contract?”, Which ends for the moment at the end of the year 2023.
Clara Copponi's life resembles a permanent time trial, a format in which her manager assures that the Aixoise could: "You have to give her time to develop but for me she's not just a sprinter : she goes fast, she rubs well, she climbs well, she goes fast in time - she also finished 3rd in a Women's Tour time trial in 2021. She has capabilities, she is gifted", assures her manager
A depression after Tokyo
"I know my coach would love for me to get started, but hey, the stopwatch...", pushes back with a smile Clara, who attributes these extraordinary performances during the Women's Tour 2021 to a context apart and to which the Tokyo Olympics , of which she keeps a contrasting memory, are no strangers:
"Physically, I had never been stronger than when I left the Games, so in my head, I had never felt so bad," she rewinds.
"[Talking about Tokyo] was very complicated for a very long time. For six months, I couldn't talk about it without crying. It's hard to come back from a competition like that, where you expected great things. There were great things but there was no podium, whereas I dreamed of it since childhood”, she says with a bitter smile, thinking back to this immense feeling of emptiness post-Japan.
"Just after, I was at home in the south of France, by the pool. I didn't want anything anymore. My family has never heard of the Games," she explains, referring to its post-Tokyo slump.
"Now, I put it into perspective: fifth at the Olympic Games, at 22, it's still not bad. And then, I use it too. Now I know what pressure is. Because, it's the reality of the Olympic Games: you are stressed. Even if you are the most relaxed in the world, seeing everyone around who is stressing, stresses you out. We discussed it a lot with my coaches and in mental preparation.
And to overcome this post-Olympic depression, there's nothing like getting back in the saddle quickly: "I was lucky. My season wasn't over, so I got back on the road in peak form and I performed, starting with the Tour of Britain [where she finished second in the general classification, Ed]. This end of the season allowed me to overcome that and come back with the desire to do better."
The FDJ cocoon
The desire to do better is what guides Clara Copponi for the year and a half that separates her from the Paris Olympics.
Since Tokyo, she has chained the performances, just like her team of the FDJ.
In 2022, she obtained her first success in the World Tour with a stage victory on the Women's Tour and a prestigious victory on the Fourmies classic.
She also collected places of honor and 2023 starts under the same auspices: a 2nd place on the inaugural stage of Down Under.
On the track, at the European Championship in Granges at the 1st stage of the Nations Cup in Jakarta, it is also adorned with silver that she returned from the Madison event, a color that she is starting to wear too know to his liking.
Clara Copponi wins stage one of the Women's Tour in Bury St Edmunds - https://t.co/XZjbakJ185{
Clara Copponi wins the first stage of the 2022 Women's Tour in three hours 40 minutes 15 seconds for her first road-racing victoryFrench cyclist Clara Copponi won the opening stage o... pic.twitter.com/7ZrJ3KvYAc
— Eric Thompson (@isearch247) June 6, 2022
"It's starting to get a lot of second places and my season is starting the same way. The wheel hasn't turned yet," she laments, determined to do everything to change the situation.
"She is often disappointed to be second. There may be some work to be done on the choices at the finish. With her track specialization, sprints are not managed in the same way since we tend to sprint sitting down", notes Stephen Delcourt.
“I would love to have it available for a full year…”, he adds, dreaming of the results it would bring.
To help it reach an additional level, the FDJ seems the ideal team with its extraordinary dynamic since 2022: fourth in the world ranking last year and first in the UCI ranking for the moment in 2023. In this group united by solid bonds of friendship and the common desire to excel, she rubs shoulders with Marie Le Net, one of her partners in the France team, but also Vittoria Guazzini, one of the pillars of the Italy team, on a daily basis.
The two women are accomplices and like to tease each other about the upcoming deadline.
"There is inevitably rivalry when you are in the velodrome. But at the start of the race, you always have a little look, a smile", slips the Frenchwoman, "and then when the gunshot sounds, it there is no longer a friend until the finish line".
"In addition, we are often in the final against the Italians and we often lose against the Italians... In Paris, we will see who will have the last word."
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