Bryan Coquard showed his immense tal­ent and huge poten­tial for the future by win­ning the sil­ver medal in the men’s Omnium at the London Olympics.

The Frenchman is only 20 years old but raced with a matu­rity and class that indi­cates he is a future star of the sport. He is already a suc­cess­ful rider on the road with the Colnago-sponsored Vendee U team and will turn pro­fes­sional with Team Europcar in 2013. We can’t wait to see him tak­ing on Mark Cavendish on the other sprint­ers in the pro­fes­sional races.

Coquard fin­ished just two points behind Omnium gold medal­list Lasse Norman Hansen of Denmark, who recov­ered from a crash in the Scratch race to pull back a lap and then dom­i­nate the kilo­me­tre –the final event of the six-race com­pe­ti­tion. Great Britain’s Edward Clancy took the bronze medal.

“I’m super happy,” Coquard said after col­lect­ing his sil­ver medal with a huge smile on his face. “I’ve been think­ing about the Olympics for two years and work­ing very hard. You could say that the Omnium was made for me. It was cre­ated when I was a junior and I went on to become dou­ble junior world cham­pion. I achieved every­thing I wanted. I man­aged to qual­ify for the Olympics and also won the track world Cup stand­ings. Even if I didn’t win gold in London, the Omnium is still my event!

Coquard is look­ing for­ward to rac­ing as a pro­fes­sional and excit­ing pro­fes­sional cycling fans just as he did on the Olympic velodrome.

“I’ve still got a lot of child­hood dreams. I realised I wanted to race when I first watched the Tour de France. I’m going to turn pro­fes­sional with Team Europcar in January. I love spec­tac­u­lar rac­ing, that enter­tains the pub­lic. Thomas Voeckler and Pierre Rolland were inspi­ra­tional again this year. I want to be part of that, I want to win races and excite people.”

View Previous
View Next