It’s something of a curiosity that it’s now more than four decades since a French cyclist won the Tour de France – Bernard Hinault victorious for the fifth time in 1985.
Laurent Jalabert’s triumph in the Vuelta a España ten years later is the last instance of a French rider winning any of the grand tours.
At national level, the outlook has been somewhat brighter – Julian Alaphilippe won the men’s road race at the World Championships in 2020 and 2021 while Pauline Ferrand-Prévot claimed the women’s iteration in 2014.
As with football and rugby, the French team kit has morphed to a darker shade of blue over the years but we’re going back in time to a more traditional colour-scheme.
Previously, we looked at the Great Britain team’s outfits at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona; while they still had the adidas trefoil, France’s blue, white and red offerings carried the new Equipment logo – but cycling was an exception.
Jersey – ten on ten, no notes. Shorts – the logo of cycling equipment company Look, which had of course inspired the La Vie Claire kits, was perhaps intrusive but a nice touch was the replacement of their wordmark with ‘France’.
France won two cycling medals at the Games – silver for Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli in the women’s road race and bronze in the men’s team time-trial.
