The manager of Nicolas Roche’s Ag2r La Mondiale team has said his riders need to get a result in the Tour of Beijing to give themselves a fighting chance of remaining a World Tour team.
Vincent Lavenu bemoaned the fact that his team had so few victories this year.
He implied that he is putting pressure on his riders to score more world ranking points and that he himself is coming under pressure from the sponsors to secure the vital points to remain in the World Tour.
He said his riders know they must get results in the Tour of Beijing, which started in China this morning, Wednesday.
He told the French sports newspaper L’Equipe that good performances from his riders were not good enough; the team needed ranking points.
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"There are bonuses only for victories and not for good results. Either you win, which we don't, or you have to find solutions. Our sponsor and myself want to remain in first division next year, so I have decided to try and find riders who win races."
There are currently 18 teams in the World Tour rankings, who secure a place in that top division on the basis of the ranking points scored by the riders on their roster.
Ag2r is currently last of those 18 teams in the official UCI rankings. However, it has 342 points, just 27 below Vacansoleil and 29 points behind Quickstep.
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Roche has had a poor year following injury and crashes. Normally the points he would secure would have kept the team well above the relegation zone.
Lavenu believes that given the transfer of strong riders to other teams just above and below Ag2r in the rankings, his team could be as low as 20th at present, just outside the top flight.
If he is right, and if the team fails to secure more points before the season is over, it would mean Ag2r La Mondiale would be demoted to Professional Continental status.
It is unclear what the implications of this relegation would be for Nicolas Roche and indeed if the Irishman would even stay on with the French outfit.
Lavenu has already been busy in the transfer market, trying to bring in riders that would increase the team’s points tally, including Jimmy Casper and Manuel Belletti, who have won 19 races between them this season.
A demotion for the team would mean they would no longer be automatically included in major races like the Tour de France, Vuelta and Giro.
However, they would most likely get wild card invitations, meaning their race schedule may not suffer too much. The financial implications are not as clear.
Ag2r rider Jean Christophe Peraud, who won a silver medal in MTB in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and was 10th overall in this year’s Tour de France, told L’Equipe the riders were aware of the need to perform in China.
"The leader has mastered the art of calculating ranking points and a top eight for me would do him great service," he said of the Chinese assignment.
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