David Gaudu has apologised after criticising his Groupama-FDJ teammate, Arnaud Démare, in an online chatroom conversation that was leaked on Wednesday night.
David Gaudu, a regular on the video streaming channel Twitch, was exchanging text-based messages on the Discord platform last week and revealed tensions between himself and Démare, stating openly that he didn't want the French sprinter to join him at this year's Tour de France.
The conversation is dated from the evening of January 20 but screengrabs were leaked on social media on Wednesday evening, leading Gaudu to apologise on Thursday morning.
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He issued a first apology on Twitter that was attached - and therefore drew attention - to the incriminating screengrabs, but he soon deleted it and posted a standalone message.
"My remarks never should have been aired in a public space," Gaudu wrote. "I have apologised to the team and to Arnaud."
The screengrabs, the veracity of which has been established by Gaudu's reaction, show the French climber, who placed fourth at last year's Tour de France, casually discussing his tense relationship with Démare, FDJ's lead sprinter.
"Me, I don't want him to come to the Tour," Gaudu wrote in the chatroom on January 20, adding: "Good Netflix or not, I don't care."
Gaudu later made a reference to "filming" in saying Démare "deliberately tried to put me down", although Démare didn't ride the 2022 Tour de France, where camera crews were shooting an upcoming Netflix docuseries.
Gaudu then suggested Démare once "didn't want to get in the lift because 'there's Gaudu'."
Returning to the possibility of sharing space - and support riders - in FDJ's 2023 Tour de France squad, Gaudu made clear the rift that has opened between them.
Asked what the team's aims were, he said: "Haha, if we knew them, then it's another piece of information for the final equation [...] the war is not over [...] we're on a crusade [...] the good thing is we don't speak and we almost never race together."
A little while later, Gaudu returned to the topic when a fellow Discord user jokingly - but accurately - suggested he should take care in case this created 'drama' on Twitter.
"Oof, you know it," Gaudu said. "If he wants me to say it to his face I can very well do so. I am not scared of him [...] He knows I don't want him at the Tour, I've already told him."
