Frenchman Lafay celebrates: traditional team wins first tour stage in 15 years

Frenchman Lafay cheers
Traditional team takes first Tour stage win in 15 years

07/02/2023, 6:35 p.m

Cofidis is one of the oldest teams in the cycling circus: in 1997 the team started at the Tour de France for the first time, in 2000 a Cofidis professional wore the yellow jersey for the first time. In 2008 a bitter series begins. But it ends with the stage win of the Frenchman Victor Lafay on the 2nd stage of the Tour de France 2023.

The French professional cyclist Victor Lafay from Team Cofidis has won the second stage of the 110th Tour de France in the Basque Country. The team colleague of Berlin’s Simon Geschke won the longest section of this year’s edition after 208.9 km in San Sebastian in the sprint of a leading group ahead of Belgian Wout Van Aert (Belgium/Jumbo-Visma). Third, like the day before, was challenger Tadej Pogacar (Slovenia/UAE Team Emirates), who again scored bonus seconds on defending champion Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Jumbo-Visma).

The overall leader’s yellow jersey is worn by Briton Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), who won Saturday’s opener in Bilbao ahead of his brother Simon. The best German in the overall standings is the former Tour fourth Emanuel Buchmann, who finished 15th with the group of favorites on Sunday. For a short time, the German champions even attacked. “I wanted to see if anyone was going with me. The stage confirmed that my legs are quite good,” said Buchmann, who currently has to be content with helping Australian captain Jai Hindley in the Bora-hansgrohe team.

Meanwhile, Lafay ended an eternity of dry spells for his team: Cofidis competed in the Tour de France for the first time in 1997, and in 2000 the Scot David Millar was the first professional from the French team to wear the yellow jersey. But after that there were no successes in the Tour of France: in 2008 Sylvain Chavanel won another stage of the tour, after which a long, long dry spell began: until today, when Victor Lafay ended the long series.