When the transfers from the end of the 2013 cycling season were being analysed, not many made noise about how well AG2R-La Mondiale had done to secure Alexis Vuillermoz from the soon-to-be defunct Sojasun team. At the end of his first WorldTour year, he has taken his first pro win and finished eleventh in the Giro d’Itlalia while working for Domenico Pozzovivo. He talked to CyclingQuotes.com about his breakthrough year and his 2015 ambitions.

Vuillermoz revealed to CyclingQuotes.com that he had to get help from a sponsor to get a place on AG2R after Sojasun announced they were folding and he would probably have been without a team for 2014, or at least not ridden on a team of AG2R’s quality, without the extra finance.

“At the end of Sojasun Team, to be honest I didn’t have a lot of way. It's Daniel Germond (a private sponsor) from Jura (my homeland) who help me to find AG2R la mondial team. It was the best opportunity for me to integrate this team with these good climbers.”

However, the 26 year old proved excellent value for the French squad, finishing eighth on GC in the Criterium International whilst helping teammate Jean-Christphe Peraud to the overall before finishing eleventh on the GC in the Giro d’Itlalia, helping Domenico Pozzovivo to fifth overall and AG2R to win the team’s prize. He was in no doubt about how big the Giro performance was for himself.

“For sure it's was my best result of my career. After the tour de France for my first professional season, the Giro d'Italia was a great opportunity for me to enhance my strongest skill... with all the climbing stages of Giro. Moreover I was glad to beneficiate of the advices of Domenico and of my experienced teammate during this Grand Tour.”

Not long after the Giro, he secured his first ever classification when he took the Route du Sud’s Mountains Classification, beating experienced WorldTour pros like Jerome Cousin (Europcar) and Kanstantin Siutsou (Sky). 

He took a break and then headed to Poland to resume his season, then finishing fifth in the hard Tour du Doubs one-day race. 

Next up was the Tour du Gevaudan, only two days long but very tough. He finished sixth on stage one; 26 seconds behind Thomas Degand and Amets Txurruka and the time to Txurruka would prove crucial in the overall battle. The next day, he won a small bunch sprint of eleven riders, beating Thibaut Pinot and Romain Hardy to the line, sealing third overall (22 seconds behind Txurruka and four behind Degand) and his first ever pro win.

“It was very important for me to take the win for the first time. All professional riders want to win, it's important for the confidence.”

After this great success, he rounded out his season with a lot of one-day races in Italy, with 12th in Milano-Torino being his best result, again in the service of a teammate, Rinaldo Nocentini, who came second. When asked if he sees himself as a potential one-day racer in hard Classics like Milano-Torino and the Ardennes, he said: “For sure these races and stage race, are the best races for me. But I need to progress and learn again to hope challenging the best’s riders.”

Stage races suit him well, and possibly even Grand Tours in the future, as at 26 he has lots of time to develop.

“The way is again very long to challenging best GT rider. I want to go step-by-step and I am going to see in the future if I can take the leadership in Grand Tour."

But for 2015, Vuillermoz is keen to ride his second Tour de France and help his team leaders when the road kicks upwards, like he did for them this year.

“For 2015, my main goal will be to help my leaders in mountain and I hope a lot to ride again the Tour de France.”