Groupama-FDJ's team manager Marc Madiot has explained that their unexpected decision to send hugely talented young climber Lenny Martinez to the 2024 Tour de France is partly because he feels the race will be decided in “three or four days”, and riders like Martinez will be able to take advantage.
Martinez, who will turn 21 during the Tour, will be making his debut in the Grand Boucle alongside established GC leader and teammate David Gaudu. But unlike Gaudu, he will not be targeting the overall.
Explaining his relatively late addition to the Groupama lineup, Madiot told L’Équipe on Tuesday that he expects that the Tour de France will see leading GC favourite Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) launch early, powerful attacks to ‘blow out’ defending champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) before the Dane - finally in the Tour after a long spell away from racing due to severe injuries from a crash in April - can get back on terms.
Should that happen, riders like Martinez with no GC interest would be able to make the most of what Madiot called ‘gift vouchers’ in the third week when UAE, controlling the race, will likely be allowing breakaways to go clear.
“The Tour will be over in three or four days,” Madiot said to the French newspaper.
"Pogačar will break things apart and blow out Vingegaard. In his place, that’s what I’d do to be sure he [Vingegaard] doesn’t get back on top form."
"So in the third week, just like in the Giro d’Italia," where Pogačar crushed the opposition, "they’ll be handing out ‘exit gift vouchers’"- vouchers given to festival-goers after the last concerts, and here meaning stage wins for breakaways.
Under such circumstances, Madiot said, a rider like Martinez was ideal for getting in breakaways, while Gaudu, a former top-five finisher on GC, could continue to focus on the overall.
“And why not [send Martinez to the Tour]?” Madiot asked rhetorically. “He was in our long list that we sent to ASO.
“Race programs aren’t set in stone and we discussed it with the sports directors and with Lenny, who said he wanted to go to the Tour. That was the way the cookie crumbled.”
This season Martínez has gone from strength to strength. He won his first race of the year, the Classic Var, and has gone on to take a further five, the most high-profile being the Trofeo Laigueglia 1.Pro race in Italy, as well as taking an eighth place in the ultra-tough Strade Bianche.
Apart from being the most successful rider in Groupama-FDJ, with six wins of their total of 11, in stage racing, he has carved out an impressively consistent run of placings despite his relative inexperience. These range from second in O Gran Camiño behind Vingegaard to seventh overall in the Volta a Catalunya and eighth in the Tour de Romandie.
Even though Martinez fell off the pace in the Tour de Suisse overall and finished 33rd, he still took an encouraging sixth in the final time trial, after enjoying a spell at the top of the leaders board for provisional best time.
“We got the green light from the doctor, who said that he had recovered, it was all going fine for him. He hasn’t raced so much,” Madiot argued.
“He’s won a lot” - in 33 days of competition to date in 2024 - “but he’s not raced so much.”
“Then the Tour de Suisse is one thing, the Tour de France is another. If he ends up being in the gruppetto, it’s not so serious, we just want him to strike some high notes.”
This season Martínez was originally down to go to the Vuelta a Espana for a second time, a race where he made history last year during its first week by becoming its youngest ever leader when aged 20 years and two months. He held the top spot on GC for two days.
Martínez is not completely ruled out for the Vuelta this year, Madiot said in another interview, with cyclismactu.net, adding that “We’ll take it step by step.”
Groupama-FDJ for the 2024 Tour de France
- David Gaudu
- Kevin Geniets
- Romain Grégoire
- Stefan Kung
- Lenny Martinez
- Valentin Madouas
- Quentin Pacher
- Clement Russo
Get unlimited access to all of our coverage of the Tour de France - including journalists reporting, breaking news and analysis on the ground from every stage of the race as it happens and more. Find out more.
