The Frenchman does not understand that we value the stage victory more in a good place in the general classification on the big loop.
Playing the general classification by trying to follow the best or let yourself be won in the ranking to better target the stage victory? Faced with this eternal dilemma, Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet decided. The Groupama-FDJ training runner will play a place in the first twenty hoping, why not, get used to the Top 10 of the Tour de France.
An exemplary runner in regularity
The 32-year-old Norman assumes this choice knowing that he may be criticized by a part of the public who sometimes points to a form of lack of plume, a slightly follow-up of risk taking. “Between a fifteenth place and a stage, what would I choose?” It’s better to win a step and make fifteenth, it seems obvious to me, right? »»reacted the runner of French training.
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In the top 10 in 2023 but without a stage victory on the Tour
Guillaume Martin has always favored the general classification on the big loop in the past, with some success. He was 12th in 2019 and 11th in 2020. He had especially taken a magnificent 8th place in Paris in 2021, his best result, the 10th in 2023 and the 13th in 2024. A great regularity even if he has never won a stage on the most beautiful of cycling races.
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“I find that in France, we are a little hypocritical. We will always look for the little beast. We complain that no French runner has won the Tour for 40 years (and the victory of Bernard Hinault, editor’s note) and at the same time, we laugh at runners (who play the general, editor’s note). I know what I am capable of, I do not take the start of the Tour to win in the end but rather finish in the waters of what I have done in the past ”defended the runner, straight in his boots, while other French people have clearly displayed their ambition to shine one day on a stage, even if it means leaving aside the general classification.
It is too easy to hope for a winner and at the same time say that you just need stage victories.
Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet
“I think of young talents arriving in the French peloton. You have to be able to do 10th, 8th or 7th before thinking about victory first, being able to manage this. If you never go into the race for regularity, we will never be able to play the general ”, insisted the former runner of the Cofidis team. “I think that in France, it would also be able to be able to revalue this if one day we want to have a French winner of the Tour. It’s too easy to hope for a winner and at the same time say that you just need stage victories. ”
