Cofidis sprinter looking to finish on the Champs-Elysées
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Adrien Petit (Cofidis) in the break during stage 8 of the Tour de France(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Adrien Petit (Cofidis) in the breakaway(Image credit: ASO/B. Bade)
Adrien Petit (Cofidis) has a chat with Pierre Rolland (Europcar) on the startline in Gérardmer(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The winner Adrien Petit (Cofidis, Solutions Credits) (Image credit: Sonoko Tanaka)
Adrien Petit's debut Tour de France has left the 23-year-old battered and bruised but the Cofidis rider is intent on making onto the Champs-Elysée on Sunday
"I've recovered from my crash," Petis said of his stage 5 fall on the cobbles. "The worst thing was I had to recuperate in tricky stages. In the Vosges, in the stage to Mulhouse and then to La Planches des Belles Filles, it was a hard suffering."
The silver medalist from the 2011 U23 world championships was bouyed by the start of stage 6 on his hometown which has been added motivation to make it to Paris.
"It was not an ordeal because it's just great to be here without the crowds, the media, everything is ten times bigger," he said.
More suited to the flat stages, Petit is expecting to be spending the next two Pyranean stages in the Grupetto which has become a daily routine when the roads head upwards but will doing his best to make into a breakaway for a second time having succeeded on stage 8.
"And then, the real achievement for me would be to make it all the way to the Champs-Elysées," he added. "It would make me very proud. But first I need to go past the mountains."
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