The second stage of a Grand Tour, expected to be a sprint finish, might be a day where you expect a team chasing the yellow jersey to sit back and let the sprint teams dictate the race, but that's certainly not what FDJ United-Suez did at the Tour de France Femmes on Sunday.
After the team underlined before the race how yellow was the only goal, not stage wins or anything else, it was a slight surprise to see Célia Gery on the attack in the final 50km of stage 2 to Geneva, spending energy on an attack that perhaps seemed unlikely to survive to the finish.
But whilst this may go against our preconceived ideas about how a GC should or would race in the hunt for yellow, FDJ United-Suez are confident that they can mix aggressivity with Demi Vollering's campaign to win the yellow jersey.
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"Well, there is one sprinter who is so fast so we can't compete against her, we don't have a real sprinter here, and that's a choice. We make a team without someone who can sprint, but we want also to try to create something different," FDJ sports director Nicolas Maire explained to Cyclingnews at the finish of stage 2.
"At one point there were some attacks in the climbs, so it was also the job of Célia to try to go and to see if we can create something that could be good and maybe reach the final with a small group. That's why she tried to attack."
The newly-crowned French national champion, Gery, is here primarily to work for Vollering, but after proving her immense talents with a stage win at the Giro d'Italia Women, it's clear that FDJ don't want to hold her back for no reason. And in fact, her penchant for aggressivity could be an asset in the GC fight too.
"At this moment she's quite in good shape. She's a punchy rider, the climbs suit her, so she can in one way have more freedom, but also when we have one rider at the front we don't have to chase, so it's like an insurance card at the front, I'd say. It's always nice to have someone at the front, we never know what can happen, and if we need a teammate, if she's in front she can wait for Demi," Maire explained.
"That's why we also want to be more active and it also allows the girls to be a bit more focused than just sit in the wheel, that could be a bit boring also. When you are more in the action, it's also nice for the girls."
Indeed, Gery's attack didn't come at any cost to the team's other goals, with Vollering shepherded perfectly to the finish to still sit third overall, with time on all of her major rivals.
"The first goal was to have Demi safe all day, to make sure that she doesn't lose stupid time at the finish, so the girls were around her, so that was nice," Maire said.
FDJ certainly aren't the only team racing like this, because whilst Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has largely kept her nose out of the wind, Visma-Lease a Bike also had a rider in the move with Gery.
For the French team, though, it's not necessarily about the right or wrong way to approach a Grand Tour, but more about what is right for them, and if their multitude of wins so far this year is anything to go by, they know what works.
"I think since the beginning of the season we raced quite aggressively, so I think it's a good spirit for the team, so we don't want especially to change it for the Tour," Maire said.
"We want to try some opportunities to create some good things for the team, that could be for Demi but also for a teammate on some stages. We are not a team who want to wait, and if there are some opportunities, we want to create it."
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