French cycling legend sounds alarm over 'clear decline' in performance of nation's teams and riders in 2025

Legendary directeur sportif and former French national team selector Cyrille Guimard has said that French cycling "is in clear decline" with the country not producing top-level riders, results at the men's WorldTour level severely lacking, and teams declining.

Guimard was a racer in the 1970s before working as a team director at Renault-Gitane, Système U, Castorama, and Cofidis, leading riders including Bernard Hinault, Lucien Van Impe, and Laurent Fignon to seven Tour de France victories and also working with Greg LeMond, among others.

The 78-year-old is now retired, but his opinion undoubtedly still holds weight, and he sees a bleak present-day for French cycling.

Speaking to Cyclism'Actu, Guimard said that he's "worried about the evolution of French cycling" as French riders and teams have struggled to make an impact in WorldTour races in 2025, while two teams – Cofidis and Arkéa-B&B Hotels – look set to drop out of cycling's top division altogether.

"Since the beginning of the year, I have found that French cycling is a little bit in decline, and the figures also demonstrate this. The various UCI rankings, whether individual or collective, mean that today we can be worried about the evolution of French cycling and especially the presence of the French," Guimard said.

He pointed out that French riders perform well at local French Cup races, with "4, 5, or even 6 in the top 10" before contrasting those results with races at WorldTour level, where French riders have achieved just three podium places in 2025.

To date, three second places – Paul Magnier's at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kévin Vauquelin's at La Flèche Wallonne, and Lenny Martinez's at the Tour de Romandie – are France's best results.

Bryan Coquard and Lenny Martinez have taken three stage wins (at the Tour Down Under, Paris-Nice and Romandie) for France but the nations WorldTour wins total ranks alongside Ecuador and below Slovenia (10), Australia (9), Italy, Denmark (8), Spain, Great Britain, Netherlands (7), Belgium (6), Portugal (5), and the USA (4).

"When we go to the larger events, we realise that we don't have any impact on the race. The number of top 10s since the beginning of the year, I mean top 10s, is relatively rare, and we also have very, very few top 5s. That's perhaps what's most alarming," Guimard said.

"We are still getting pretty poor results in very high-level WorldTour races. Yes, it's true that apart from Vauquelin, in the one-day races, we are not present; at the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, or Milan-San Remo. But even the Classics below the Monuments, we are not in the rankings, and that is where, when we take stock, yes, France is in clear decline."

From topping the UCI nation ranking in 2020 and finishing third in the next two seasons, France is currently ranked eighth. Part of that decline has come with the decline of stars such as Julian Alaphilippe and Arnaud Démare, with no riders developing to replace them at the top level.

Guimard said that the direction of travel is "worrying", singling out the ongoing decline of two of France's four WorldTour teams, Cofidis and Arkéa-B&B Hotels. The teams are both languishing around the WorldTour relegation zone and look unlikely to stay in the top division for 2026, with Arkéa also struggling to find future sponsorship.

"The French teams are falling, and if we look closely, we might risk having next season only two teams in the WorldTour," he said. "Cofidis is threatened, they still have a 250-point lead over Astana, and about the same over Picnic PostNL. I don't know if Cofidis will be able to stay in the WorldTour. All the arrows are pointing down, there isn't one going up.

"Do they belong as WorldTour teams? That's the question you have to ask yourself. Not today, that's obvious, even if Cofidis has had a bit of a revival."

Budgetary constraints and promising youngsters

Guimard acknowledged that even Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, by far the best-performing French squad in 2024 and 2025, mostly built their success on results in smaller French races.

He noted that they haven't reached the level of the big international teams like Visma-Lease A Bike, Lidl-Trek, and Alpecin-Deceuninck, let alone UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

"We don't have the same budgets as foreign teams, we can say that. Teams like UAE, Bahrain, and Ineos, it's difficult to reach their level," he said. "But there are other teams that don't have those budgets and that run relatively well, if only like Soudal-QuickStep, for example, or Alpecin-Deceuninck. So, it's true, French resources are limited.

"It should also be added that France is the world champion in terms of expenses, and the cost of an employee, the cost of a cyclist in France, with equal value, does not have the same cost. So, this also partly weighs on budgets.

"And the question that must be asked is: is it in the interest of French groups, French teams, to stay in France? That is the question. And we can ask ourselves the question."

Guimard noted that several promising young French riders are coming through at the moment, with Groupama-FDJ rider Romain Grégoire and Decathlon AG2R pairing of Léo Bisiaux and Paul Seixas are among them.

Guimard hopes that this next batch of youngsters can emulate the likes of Alaphilippe and Romain Bardet, even if he concluded with a pessimistic note about the state of French cycling as a whole.

"It's true that Bisiaux, Seixas, [Decathlon AG2R development rider] Aubin Sparfel, and 2-3 other youngsters have demonstrated that they have qualities. But it's more at the level of Seixas and Bisiaux that the hopes are real. These are riders who tomorrow can become, I think, even for Seixas, among the top 10 in the world in two or three years.

"However, we still have to put a small caveat, which is that at the same time as we have these two or three riders arriving, we have the same thing abroad. So, which ones will progress enough to be there and to dominate or not?

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed, it would be good if we find some great champions to restore a little lustre to French cycling. Because if at the professional level things are not going very well, when you look at everything that is happening at the amateur level, it's not great either."