AG2R LA MONDIALE is continuing to move forward after its victory in Paris-Nice. Indeed, the riders of Vincent Lavenu also shone on Italian roads of Tirreno-Adriatico that ended today with the success of Alberto Contador.

 

The “heaven and earth” have demonstrated an excellent team spirit rewarded by the 4th and 6th places overall of Jean-Christophe Péraud and Domenico Pozzovivo, but also by the victory in the team standings.

 

“Domenico (Pozzovivo) and Jean-Christophe (Péraud) were our two leaders in this competition and we have well managed this double leadership," sports director Didier Jannel says. "We didn’t know how Jean-Christophe's condition was after his gastric problems but he was feeling better and better over the days. We knew that we would have to face an extremely tough fight but we have built our strategy day by day and everything worked well.

 

"The team time trial was important for the final overall standings. It’s not our specialty but we knew we had to do our best to minimize the time loss on this first stage and that’s what we did. Then, the two mountain days went pretty well for us with an exceptional 5th stage. That day, JC and Pozzo have finished in the top 10 but we don’t have to forget Rinaldo (Nocentini) and Matteo (Montaguti) who were just some minutes behind them, and all the teammates who have done an extraordinary work around their leaders. The group present at this Tirreno was really great, as were the staff members who were well focused on their job.

 

"Our main objective at the start was to put one or two riders in the top ten overall and I think we managed that with the 4th and 6th ranks overall of Jean-Christophe and Domenico. Rinaldo is not very far as he finished 12th overall. Tonight we can be more than satisfied with our performance in light of the riders lined up at this race.”