Damien Gaudin

July 10, 2015

High and Lows in Stage 6: Martin Abandons; Teklehaimanot Grabs Polka Dot

The Tour de France returned to Les Cuspides on Stage 6. Julien Simon of Cofidis and Damien Gaudin of AG2R La Mondiale shared placement on the cusp of the fulcrum.

The crash of tour leader Tony Martin and the subsequent announcement that he would abandon due to a broken collarbone made the stage win by teammate Zdenek Stybar a pyrrhic victory.

On the other hand, the work done by Daniel Teklehaimanot of MTN-Qhubeka to pick up the 3 mountain-climber points available on the course of Stage 6 meant that he is the first Eritrean and, in fact, the first African to stand on the Tour de France podium. He won the mountain jersey in this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné.

Also, Armindo Fonseca, who held the Point d’Appui after Stage 5, finished strongly on Stage 6, attaining 14th place in the sprint finish.

The yellow jersey was still held by Martin at the end of the stage, although it , and Michael Matthews remains the Lanterne Rouge.

March 3, 2013

Cofidis Teammates on Cuspides for Paris-Nice Prologue

A pair of Cofidis riders, Jerome Coppel and Rein Taaramae, have taken the Cuspides on the Prologue of the Paris-Nice stage race, the unofficial start of the 2013 racing season.

It took less than five minutes for even the slowest rider, Andreas Klier of Garmin Sharp, to finish the 2.9 kilometer Prologue in the Paris suburb of Houilles. All 184 riders came home safely, so there is no Point d’Appui to be awarded on the Prologue. Coppel and Taaramae were both 13 seconds adrift.

Damien Gaudin of Europcar won the Prologue, narrowly edging out Sylvain Chavanel of Omega Pharma-Quickstep and Lieuwe Westra of Vacansoleil-DMC. The Prologue win was unexpected for the Europcar Team, or at least anyone following Europcar. Chris Fontecchio over at Podiumcafe picked Europcar as the team whose ambition at Paris-Nice might be to “get noticed on camera at some point.” Gaudin has a string of first place finishes in the French national track championships, but this his first top finish in a stage race, albeit a Prologue that on paper looks more like a track race than a stage race.

A Frenchman, Yann Huguet of Team Argos-Shimano, had the median time of the day with right at 25 seconds.

Monday’s stage, 195 kilometers from Saint-Germain-en-Laye to Nemours, will be a romp for the sprinters. With only three seconds separating the middle 20 percent of the racers, anyone might slip into the fulcrum position by the end of the day.