Ag2r confirmed their great progression when they emerged as a dominant force in the Giro d'Italia. Despite missing out on a stage win, the team reached it objectives by having Domenico Pozzovivo finish 5th overall and winning the teams classification.

All year Ag2r-La Mondiale have shown that they are now a force to be reckoned with in the biggest races and over the last three weeks they have confirmed their new status in the Giro d'Italia. Going into the race, they had three objectives and they reached two of them in a race that exceeded their expectations.

Most importantly, Domenico Pozzovivo reached the objective of finishing in the top 5 when the tiny Italian took his best ever grand tour result. Furthermore, the team played a dominant role in the mountain stages that allowed them to win the teams classfication.

In fact, the team was riding so weel that they had three riders in the overall top 16. In his first Giro, Alexis Vuillermoz finished 11th while the ever-consistent Hubert Dupont took 16th.

The only slight disappointment was the fact that the team failed to win a stage but sports director Laurent Biondi can't hide his satisfaction with the outcome.

“The result is obviously very good from a sporting point of view," he said. "Our first objective was to put a rider in the Top 5 overall and this was done with the 5th place of Domenico Pozzovivo.

"We also aimed to obtain a good teams classification and we went beyond what we expected by winning the overall standings. This victory is no conincidence and it symbolizes our Giro in which we demonstrated our great collective spirit every day.

"Once more Hubert Dupont showed how his results are regular with a 16th place overall. As for Alexis Vuillermoz, he finished 11th, a very promising result that bodes well for the future. He has achieved this performance while he had to work hard to support Domenico. Only a stage win is missing but it was difficult to reach so many objectives.

"Then, I want also to highlight the work done by Julien (Bérard), Axel (Domont), Matteo (Montaguti) and Maxime (Bouet) throughout this Giro. They were present each time it was needed alongside Pozzo or when they had to go in breakaways.

"Unfortunately, we missed Davide Appollonio too early after he had finished out of time on the 11th stage. It’s a pity because he was i good shape and he could have been able to shine in the sprints.

"In any case, we finished this Giro d’Italia with the satisfaction of a job well done and we are already thinking about the next races.”