At 30, Geoffrey Bouchard, a native of Dijon, takes the start this Friday of his first Tour de France. A professional runner for only four years, the Côte-d’Orien broke through late in life.
La marseillaise à pétanque 2022, 61st edition of the world –
The tour of France ? “I dream about it“, confided to us Geoffrey Bouchard a year ago. Today, it’s a dream come true for the native of Dijon: this Friday, July 1, Geoffrey Bouchard takes the start of the Big Loop with the AG2R-Citroën team, led by Australian Ben O’Connor.
At 30, Geoffrey Bouchard is still starting out in professional cycling. Until 2018, he raced as an amateur, first licensed in Voiron in Isère, where his parents moved during his childhood, then in Vaulx-en-Velin near Lyon, and in Roanne in the Loire. “He didn’t start early, he came to us as a teenager, around 16“remembers the president of the Union Cycliste Voironnaise Arnaud Sevoz.
At the same time, Geoffrey Bouchard was commercial for Decathlon in Bourgoin-Jallieu, a position he eventually left in 2017 to devote himself fully to cycling.
It was in 2018, after a successful amateur season, that Geoffrey Bouchard was spotted by the AG2R-La Mondiale team. (today AG2R-Citroën). That year, he notably won the Tour du Charolais, the Tour du Beaujolais, the Tour Alsace, the Tour de Moselle and the Tour de Nouvelle-Calédonie, and was crowned French amateur champion.
Geoffrey Bouchard was confirmed within AG2R in 2019, and distinguished himself that same year by winning the classification of the best climber of the Vuelta in Spain. In 2021, again, this time on the Italian Giro: he again won the jersey (blue) of the best climber.
And Italy definitely seems to suit Geoffrey Bouchard : this year, it was in the mountains of Trentino that he won the victory of the first stage of the Tour of the Alps in April. Before that this season, Geoffrey Bouchard finished eighth overall in the UAE Tour, fifth in a stage at the Critérium du Dauphiné, fourth in Paris-Camembert.
► A YEAR AGO – Cycling: Geoffrey Bouchard, the rider from Dijon, dreams of a victory in the Vuelta and to participate in the Tour de France
And the Tour in all this? Before the big start, Geoffrey Bouchard expressed his concentration. “I expect to see a lot of people along the roads, a lot of noise and fervor. We will try to enjoy the party, and at the same time we must be vigilant. We take a lot of pleasure, when we manage to have results“, he said in the morning of France Bleu / France 3 Burgundy.
“The general classification will not be his role. That will be it for the leader, Ben O’Connor. But Geoffrey could create the surprise on a stage“, advances Arnaud Sevoz of UC Voironnaise (where Geoffrey Bouchard is still licensed, and to whom he donated his best climber’s jersey). But even without a result in the Tour, Geoffrey Bouchard has already achieved some of his dreams.
“Five years ago, I was still an amateur. For me, at 30, to have managed to win a race with the pros with the Tour des Alpes and to be at the start of the Tour de France today. .. I feel like I’ve lived several lives in one.”
“I take time to do things. I am not gifted. On the other hand, I arrive at my objectives”, adds Geoffrey Bouchard. “The fact of having started late, it is perhaps also what will be able to forge its longevity in cycling“, analyzes for his part the president of the UC voironnaise. This Friday in Copenhagen, the first stage of the Tour, Geoffrey Bouchard will start at 5:34 p.m. with bib number 32.
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