Cordon-Ragot: Pineau brothers told 'elite-level lies' about team project

Audrey Cordon-Ragot, one of the riders set adrift by the collapse of the 2023 team project that was supposed to spawn from the B&B Hotels-KTM squad run by brothers Jérôme and Sébastian Pineau, gave new details into the deceit that strung riders along until December.

Speaking to Le Télégramme in an exclusive interview, Cordon-Ragot gives details of a team management that convinced riders for months that the project would go forward when all signs pointed in the opposite direction.

"It's a crazy story. I still can't believe it," Cordon-Ragot told Le Télégramme. "For two months, we were pushed around. As far as lies go, that's on an elite level, no?

"I'm still trying to find explanations: was it a vicious circle, a spiral, a descent into hell where you lie once, then a second time, then a third time and you end up convincing yourself of your lies?"

The uncertainty surrounding her future was a "new ordeal" after the French champion suffered a stroke that ruled her out of the UCI Road World Championships in September and was extra stressful because she had personally recruited several of the women to the team.

"I believed so much in this project, I had put my DNA into it. People are going to think I'm completely stupid, but until December 6, I was convinced that it was going to work," Cordon-Ragot said. "I was even yelling at people who said it wasn't. I feel guilty for taking so many people with me in this shipwreck."

The 33-year-old detailed the journey from having excitement about building a new team to dismay when it suddenly went up in flames.

"In the spring, I met the Pineau brothers in Theix. They presented me with their project and proposed me to be part of it," she said. "I was in on the secret, it gave me confidence, and I embraced the project like never before. At the same time as I was preparing for the Tour de France – I took care of recruiting the riders and staff with one of my friends and future coach."

She said there were even suggestions she would take over as general manager from Sébastian Pineau after retiring in 2024. Details began to come together during the summer and by the end of October, the riders were summoned to Paris for an announcement that should have named Mark Cavendish to the men's team and revealed the women's roster.

In between, Cordon-Ragot said she heard less and less news from the Pineau brothers. "When I asked, Sébastien Pineau reassured me. In mid-October, we were summoned to Paris for an interview with the management, to try on clothes, etc. At the time, I was told that the team's co-sponsor was about to sign. Why would I doubt it?

Then, the first alarm bells rang when the scheduled team presentation was hastily cancelled on October 24. Again, she says Sébastien Pineau continued to reassure her everything was fine.

"According to him, it was only a hitch. During the presentation of the Tour de France [on October 27 - Ed.], I then spoke with Mark Cavendish. He told me that he had no news, that he was starting to be afraid."

She said she continued to be strung along until 7 December when the team's demise was official.

"On November 30, I reiterated my concerns to Sébastian Pineau who told me that he never had any doubts, that the bikes will arrive the following week. On December 2, Jérôme Pineau tells me that the whole project will not be done and that only the women's team could eventually be saved.

"Three days later [December 5 – Ed.], the Pineau brothers had a meeting with the directors of B&B Hotels and in the evening, by videotape, they told us that it had only taken them ten minutes to convince them and that, this time, it was sure to go ahead."

At the time, the team had missed the UCI's registration ProTeam licence deadline but riders had hoped the men's team could continue as it was, perhaps as a Continental outfit.

A day later, the tune had changed. A call to the management made it clear there was no future in the team. "I learned that B&B Hotels no longer wished to continue and that they had informed the Pineau brothers that very morning.

"I am extremely disappointed, extremely saddened," she said. "It calls into question the trust I can give to people. It makes me a bit withdrawn, which is not like me. This story has impacted me enormously. After my stroke [in September – Ed.], it was a new ordeal."

She and her partner Vincent Ragot, who was a mechanic for the B&B Hotels-KTM team, now have a future that is more assured, having joined the new Zaaf Cycling Team out of Spain, and she says she is no longer angry.

"Jérôme changed my husband's professional life and made us live for five years," she said. "I don't forget either that he had built a team that was incomparable in the world of cycling, a team that had become a real family, a group of friends. But I didn't understand this lack of clarity and honesty these last few weeks. Because of that, everything went up in smoke.

"I feel more pity. The trust is gone. They tried to save a project that was no longer a project. In the end, we all felt like we were taken hostage.

"I would never understand. I will never understand either that they don't take responsibility, that they look for other culprits when, sorry, the only culprits are them and the bad people they surrounded themselves with.

"What hurts me deeply is to hear from X and Y that they are trying to blame me, that basically if the team didn't work out, it's my fault. In other words, I'm being blamed for talking to the media - something I've never done, this is the first and last time I'll be speaking today - and for not going through with the project when I waited until the last day. All of this sticks in my craw, all this disgusts me. I find it despicable. But the bicycle wheel turns."