Cofidis have defied the rumours that they would be leaving Axel Zingle at home for the Tour de France and have included the French racer in their lineup for next Saturday's Grand Départ in Firenze, Italy.
According to L’Équipe, Zingle, 25, will be joining Visma-Lease A Bike next season, despite receiving an improved offer from Cofidis to stay with the French squad in 2025, and there were rumours that as a result of the transfer, he might not be given a spot in their Tour de France line-up.
As events turned out, the one-day and week-long stage race specialist has been selected for the Tour. He and Belgian Piet Allegaert, also making his Tour debut, will mainly work as part of the sprint train for fellow Frenchman Bryan Coquard, the team said in a press release, although Zingle will also have his chance on hillier stages.
As for Coquard, recently boosted by his first win of the season in the 2024 Tour de Suisse, the French fastman will look to snaffle a bunch sprint triumph and first Grand Tour stage win of a career stretching back to 2013.
Former Tour de France mountains classification leader Simon Geschke - who will retire at the end of the season, aged 38 - former Spanish national champion Jésus Herrada and double Tour de France stage winner Ion Izagirre are all part of the lineup. So too is the longstanding French GC contender and philosophy writer Guillaume Martin.
“Our team is, above all, going to be looking for stage victories,” commented Cofidis general manager Cédric Vasseur, himself the winner of a transition stage back in the 1997 Tour de France.
“It’s a balanced formation: for the sprints, we’ll work for Bryan Coquard and he can count on Alexis Renard, Piet Allegaert and Alex Zingle. In another part of the race, Guillaume Martin will have three riders to back him whenever the road steepens: Ion Izagirre, Jesus Herrada and Simon Geschke.”
Cofidis 2024 Tour de France team
- Piet Allegaert
- Bryan Coquard
- Simon Geschke
- Jesus Herrada
- Ion Izagirre
- Guillaume Martin
- Alexis Renard
- Axel Zingle
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