After spending a year out of the sport, Dominique Rollin has criticised the management of his old team, FDJ. The Cofidis man is riding at the Tour of Qatar, where he will be helping friend Nacer Bouhanni.

“At certain times it was frustrating. Some of the management, they’re just lingering around. They’re just former cyclists who want to be around races and it’s deceiving and it’s sad to see that they’ve not stepped off the bike. They’re still there and if they could wear the helmets in the car they would. They’d pin on numbers to the back of their t-shirts and drive the car. It’s sad to see and that’s what’s slowing down certain teams. Being here I’ve moved on and I didn’t want to be in that position anymore. Now I have the last opportunity and I’ll make the most of it,” he told Cyclingnews before a training ride.

“Hopefully seeing us together will help them get their sprints together and actually form a team but that’s not how Marc Madiot works, so this is why Nacer left. Here we’re looking at other sprinters and there’s a whole bunch of them.”

As for Rollin himself, he says he is enjoying cycling once more. In his year out, he spent a lot of time training in Girona, Spain, and jumped at the chance to come back into the pro peloton when Cofidis and Nacer Bouhanni asked him to.  

“It’s the same old but there’s been a bit of a more relaxed view. I’m enjoying it again and I’m happy to be here with a purpose. That’s what was missing in the last few years. I’d show up for races and I’d have no focus, no plan whatsoever. The team would be ‘we’re here, we’ll just race.’ There was no organisation around the race or desire to take the race up to our speed,”

The purpose Rollin is speaking of his helping Bouhanni win big and regularly throughout the season. He hopes to get hid young teammate’s season off to a flyer in the Gulf by helping him take a stage win.

“The objective here is to see him raise his hands, for sure. That’s the first achievement [to aim for] so hopefully if we get a win this week, that would be perfect.”