L'ECOLE BRITANNIQUE

Groupama-FDJ’s development squad has become a go-to place for young British riders in recent years and is turning them into WorldTour pros who get results. Maria David investigates how this most French of teams be came enamoured of young Brits and how it’s making a success of them

- 

Midnight, and a blue, red and white Skoda pulls into the car park of a hotel in Besançon, eastern France. A teenager of medium height and slight build, with short mousy-brown hair emerges from the vehicle into the cold October night. Bleary-eyed and tired, he’s ready to hit the sack straight away after a five-hour drive. It has been a long day.

Earlier that day, while the sun was still up, he competed in sodden conditions at the Paris-Roubaix Juniors race. There he toiled in the mud to help his team-mate Max Poole finish sixth, before coming home outside the time-cut himself. Worn out, mud still under his fingernails, his season now finished, he endured the long transfer to his bed for the night.

Although young Finlay Pickering’s 2021 was ending in something of a damp squib he had celebrated good results in recent times, including a top 10 in the Junior TT World Championships.

The following day he will be met at the hotel by Groupama-FDJ coach Joseph Berlin-Sémon, who will take him to the Service Course, where he will be welcomed by the team. But first, sleep.

That October Monday was the Yorkshire lad’s first meeting with the French team since signing as a professional rider in the development team for 2022. He is not the first Brit, or even the first Yorkshireman, to join the outfit led by one of the stalwarts of French professional cycling, Marc Madiot. Since January, the 18-year-old from Hull has been team-mates with fellow northerners, Joe Pidcock and Sam Watson along with riders from Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Estonia and of course France.