Cyrille Guimard

Cyrille Guimard

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Cyrille Guimard

Cyrille Guimard (born January 20, 1947 in Bouguenais, Brittany) is a French former professional road racing cyclist who became famous as the directeur sportif for two famous French cyclists and Tour de France winners: Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon, and Belgian Lucien Van Impe, who won the Tour in 1976 under his guidance. Guimard also brought American Greg LeMond to Europe after signing him to his first professional contract.

Riding career
As Directeur Sportif
Palmarès
External links
References

Riding career

As a professional rider he was the French national champion in 3 separate occasions in 3 different disciplines: road in 1967 for the amateur category, vitesse in 1970 and cyclo-cross in 1976. Guimard won several stages of the Tour de France, won the Combativity award in the 1972 Tour de France and the points classification of the Vuelta a España. During the 1972 Tour de France Guimard wore the maillot jaune for several days and matched Eddy Merckx in the mountains. Guimard was leading the Points Competition and sitting in second place in the General Classification when two days from the finish in Paris, he was forced to withdraw from the race.^[1] As a gesture of respect, Eddy Merckx presented his green points competition jersey to Guimard on the podium in Paris upon completion of the Tour. While still a rider, Guimard befriended the young professional Bernard Hinault.

As Directeur Sportif

When Guimard's career was cut short by his knee injuries, he decided to become a directeur sportif on Hinault's team, Gitane, which was run by Jean Stablinski. Guimard took over as the main directeur sportif of Gitane-Campagnolo in 1976. Hinault was having doubts about staying in the team but Guimard convinced him to stay in the team. Guimard came from winning the French cyclo-cross championships when he began directing the team that contained Hinault as well as Lucien Van Impe.^[2]

Although he was a good rider, it was as a directeur sportif that he forged his legendary reputation. He ran Gitane-Campagnolo, Renault-Elf-Gitane, Système U-Gitane, Super U, Castorama, and Cofidis; the teams which riders under his direction include Lucien Van Impe, Bernard Hinault, Laurent Fignon, Greg LeMond, Charly Mottet, Marc Madiot, and even Lance Armstrong. As a directeur sportif, his riders have won a total of 7 editions of the Tour de France.

Guimard is known as a master tactician in a race, and innovator in training techniques. In the Alpe d'Huez stage of the 1976 Tour de France he shouted at Van Impe that he'd run him off the road with the car if he didn't attack the defending champion Joop Zoetemelk. Thanks to this aggressive riding Van Impe was able to put time against Zoetemelk and win the Tour. Guimard is credited as one of the first cycling coaches to use the periodization method in the early 1980s. He is also known to have told his riders to hold back from entering certain races and competitions if he feels that they were not ready for the challenge yet. A famous example of this was Hinault's decision not to enter the 1977 edition of the Tour de France despite his impressive list of early season wins including the Dauphiné Libéré ahead of the 1977 Tour de France favourites Thevenet and Van Impe, only to win strongly the following year. In his autobiography, Hinault credited Guimard with his uncanny tactical sense for many of his greatest wins, including the snowy Liège-Bastogne-Liège of 1980.

However, Guimard's strong personality also led to disagreements with his riders, most notably with Hinault in the mid-1980s. Hinault had to abandon the 1983 Tour de France due to his knee injury, and his lieutenant Fignon won the race. The following season he decided to switch to the newly-formed La Vie Claire cycling team. "With Guimard, you do not argue, you can only listen," Hinault was known to say. Fignon was a young cyclist and was already closely associated with Guimard since his youth. "With Hinault, Guimard already had a champion. With me, he made a champion. That is perhaps why we have a special bond," Fignon admitted in an interview.

Guimard was also involved in the early development of the French UCI ProTour team Cofidis, although he no longer has a formal association. In late 2003, Guimard became an advisor and technical director of the French amateur cycling team Vélo Club Roubaix^[3] with whom he worked with the amateur Andy Schleck.^[4] In 2007, Vélo Club Roubaix Lille Metropole became a professional continental team with Guimard as manager.^[5]