Nicolas Vogondy, French champion in 2002 and 2008 will join Jean-René Bernadeau’s Bbox Bouyges Telecom team on a one-year contract next season. The 32-year-old has spent the past three years with the Professional-Continental Agritubel team, which is folding at the end of the year. His biggest results have been those two national championships, and – as the team had a predominantly domestic programme – smaller French stage races.
“I’m grateful to Jean-René who, just like Agritubel in 2007, has offered me a hand,” Vogondy told French sports paper l’Equipe. “I’m not going to Bbox just to watch, I’m going there to further pursue my career.” Unsurprisingly, he named his main targets of the season to be the reclaiming of his French title and a stage in the Tour de France.
Director Sportif Bernadeau was also pleased with the new signing: “Like Anthony Charteau, who returns home, we were looking for riders without complications,” he told l’Equipe. “Vogondy and Bichot are riders who fight all the time.” (Charteau rode for Bouyges Telecom in 2005 before transferring to Caisse d’Epargne and Bichot rode with Vogondy at Agritubel.)
Vogondy will join his new teammates in the first Buyges Telecom training camp at the end of November, but will take part in a number of regional cyclocross races first.