“I’m always better in the race.” This is how Breton Audrey Cordon-Ragot sums up her preparation. The Trek-Segafredo team rider has been preparing for the start of the season for several months, “key moment to gauge yourself.“She runs to win, but also to prepare for THE race, the one she has been waiting for for years: the Women’s Tour de Francewhich does its first edition this yearin July.
The runner, originally from feathery in the Côtes d’Armor, currently lives in Saint-Étienne-du-Gué-de-l’Isle, near Loudéac. She details her ambitions and her objectives, at the dawn of this new season.
• A word for last season?
“A good 2021 season, we always want to do better but overall it went well with a good Paris-Roubaix and a good end to the season_._“
• What is the program of festivities for this season?
“My first goal is Paris Roubaix on April 16. Then we have the French championship in June near Cholet. Then the Tour de France of course in July and we end with the world championship in September. That, it’s if I cut the season but afterwards, the program is rich by July, we race in Spain, Italy, Holland, Great Britain. There are races every week.”
• You start with the Flandrian Classics, how do you feel?
“Mentally I’m fresh, available and motivated. Afterwards physically, I’m someone who doesn’t often have a good feeling in training. I express myself much better in the race. So I’m going to try not to finish stressed, to do what I know how to do. I’ve been running these races for 15 years now, I know the roads by heartthe slightest cobblestone, so there is no reason for it to go wrong.”
“The first part of the season is always important and the Classics remain my specialty. One-day races with cobbled courses, that’s what I like. Physically it is also what suits me best. In addition, the routes resemble those I do every day here in Brittany. And then it’s part of the season where the weather is capricious and I’m a fan of bad weather, there too there is a similarity with Brittany (laughs), that’s what I like too.
• And the physical form?
“Since the end of November-beginning of December, we’ve been in it. After that, it’s difficult to know in what state of form we’re arriving. There were competitions in Spain so some girls have already run, were able to gauge each other, not me. But the ambition is to win and get on the podium, we start with a very strong team and that is our objective for this opening weekend.”
• After the Classics, there are individual titles to be won…
“Already, I want to reiterate my title of French time trial champion and pick up the one on the road. This is something that is close to my heart every year. Wearing the blue white red jersey is really a great honor. Even more this year since the Tour de France will arrive just after the French championship and I would really like to wear this jersey on the roads of the Tour. It would be an absolute dream. And then why not go find a stage on this Tour! This is one of my goals. Then there is the whole part of the championships with the national team which is important. We want to shine with this tricolor jersey and get on the podium.”
• You talk about the Tour de France, how do you view this first edition?
“It’s a double feeling. We really want to be there, we’re excited to be at the start but at the same time we know how far we still have to go by July, to to get there at 300%. It’s not a race that we can take lightly, we wanted it so badly. We want to do well, as we did in Paris-Roubaix l ‘past year. We want to prove that we deserve this Tour de France Women. You have to take each step one by one to get to the top in Paris.”
• Do you manage to project yourself?
“Honestly, it’s difficult. It’s one of the most beautiful competitions in the world and since we haven’t experienced it yet, it’s complicated to project yourself. I don’t want to put myself more pressure than necessary. I want to arrive there with the feeling of the job accomplished and the feeling of being at 300%. At the start, we will take everything as it comes and we will enjoy every moment.”
• What does this Women’s Tour de France represent for you?
“It’s the springboard that was missing in women’s cycling and perhaps even in women’s sport if we see more broadly. To professionalize this profession which until now was only a hobby for 99.9% of us. Today we can really make a living from cycling and take part in the Tour de France, that goes without saying when we think of what men have been going through for so many years. It’s the culmination of a long process, it’s a great result for the generations who are no longer on the bike but who continue to follow what is happening.”
When you’re a cyclist everyone asks you if you run the Tour de France, now I can say yes – Audrey Cordon-Ragot.
“This is recognition. I think we deserved as much as the boys today to start the most beautiful event in the world. Today I feel legitimate and I tell myself that I have as much capacity to do it as the boys, and I have the merit of being considered a professional cyclist. Two years ago that was not possible; I found it difficult to tell people that I was a professional cyclist because, in the end, I was not. The first thing the average viewer asks you when you are a cyclist it is if you do the Tour de France, whether you are a man or a woman. Today I can say yes. It’s a really big step forward for us.”