Bryan Coquard kicked off his 2022 campaign, his first with new team Cofidis, with a long-awaited victory on stage 2 of the Etoile de Bessèges on Thursday.
Before outpacing former World Champion Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) on the uphill finish in Rousson, the Frenchman hadn't stood on the top step of a podium since stage 1 of the Route d'Occitanie in August 2020 – a remarkable run stretching back 18 months and 110 days of racing.
Speaking after the stage, the 29-year-old said that he had answered criticisms from his former manager at B&B Hotels-KTM, Jérome Pineau, who opined that their Italian sprinter Luca Mozzato would do better for the team going forward.
"There were little things in the newspapers that I didn't like at all," Coquard told L'Equipe. "I'm not going to argue though – I answered on the bike and that's all I have to say."
Even taking into account his long winless run, Coquard took 12 of the 30 wins that B&B scored during his four years there. But with that spell of his career now consigned to history, he said that victory at the Etoile de Bessèges will help start his Cofidis career with "a good dynamic".
"I'm a humble person. I work a lot, and even if it didn't work out, I worked very hard. But for a sprinter, more than a year without winning is an eternity and clearly, I was thinking about it, I was fearful. This victory is a reward. It will start me with a good dynamic in this new jersey.
"It was a very difficult finish. I thought I was never going to make it through – that [Pedersen] was never going to sit down again. It was violent. It was more a question of strength than pure speed. I produced my effort at 150 to go – it was short and long at the same time."
Coquard now lies ninth overall heading into the latter three stages of the race, which include another hilly sprinter day, an uphill finish for the climbers, and the closing time trial. Teammate Benjamin Thomas lies in fourth, 20 seconds closer to race leader Pedersen at 27 seconds down.
"I told [my teammates] to take care of him and not me," said Coquard.
He'll have his next chance to add to his 46 career wins on Friday's stage in Bessèges before his attention, too, will turn towards Thomas.
After the Etoile de Bessèges Coquard will head to the Volta ao Algarve, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Paris-Nice before returning to the northern Classics with the Classic Brugge-De Panne and the E3 Saxo Bank Classic.
