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Cofidis is a French professional cycling team which has been a constant in the European cycling peleton for many years despite the lack of profile stars and victories.
Cofidis, Le Crédit par Téléphone is a French professional road bicycle racing team sponsored by the insurance company Cofidis. It was started in 1996 by Cyrille Guimard the legendary former coach/manager of Bernard Hinault, Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon of the Renault-Elf team of the 1980s. The current manager is Alain Bondue. Since 2005, the team is one of 20 teams that compete in the new UCI ProTour.
Despite its seemingly hapless luck, the team's primary sponsor Migraine is a strong supporter of cycling, and has made a strong commitment to continued sponsorship of the team despite its share of problems.
History
In 1996 legendary coach/manager Cyrille Guimard started the new team with financial backing from François Migraine the CEO of insurance company Cofidis. One of the earliest acquisitions was the young American Lance Armstrong formerly of team Motorola, at the time known as a one-day race specialist. Armstrong was released from the team because of his cancer diagnosis, and fellow American Bobby Julich became the designated team leader for the stage races. Julich's breakthrough podium placing in the 1998 Tour de France brought the new team to the spotlight, and victories in the classics thanks to Belgian Frank Vandenbroucke brought further strong results.
However, these results were followed by a few years of drought as Julich and Vandenbroucke switched teams. Vandenbroucke's Belgian compatriots Nico Mattan, Chris Peers, Peter Farazijn, and Jo Planckaert stayed on Cofidis, only to be criticised for their inconsistent performances. It was also during this time that Cofidis switched its policy to give riders rewards proportional to their UCI points gains in order to secure their team placing in the UCI rankings, called the points system. The Belgian riders criticised the policy, claiming that it will only promote a negative approach to racing where the riders are reluctant to take risks and instead take the safe approach to guarantee that they get good placings at the finish. At the end of the public exchange of criticisms with manager Alain Bondue, all these riders left for other teams.
British rider David Millar again raised the team's profile by winning the prologue of the 2000 Tour de France, hence taking on the undisputed leadership of the team. Millar later criticized the points system used by Cofidis and the team finally relented and said that it will not judge a rider's performance only by his UCI points.
The beginning of the 2004 season saw Cofidis field its most promising lineup yet, with 3 World Champions -- Igor Astarloa on the road, David Millar in the individual time trial and Laurent Gane on the track. However, the team became embroiled in a doping scandal involving its star rider David Millar. The team decided to self-impose a racing ban until it was resolved. During the investigation, Astarloa decided to switch out of the team. The investigation showed that the doping was done by individual riders, and that the team itself was not involved. The team then returned to competition in time for the 2004 Tour de France in which it won two stages courtesy of Stuart O'Grady and David Moncoutié. More significantly, Moncoutié won the stage on Bastille Day, earning much publicity for the team.
The 2005 Tour de France again saw Moncoutié winning a stage on Bastille day - the only French stage win - with O'Grady's help. However, new signing and popular rider Sylvain Chavanel failed to win a stage or to make a strong impression in the tour.
For the 2006 season Stuart O'Grady and compatriot Matthew White both left the team. Veteran French rider Cédric Vasseur -- often the road captain of the team -- also left the team for Quick Step-Innergetic. Early victory in Classic Haribo by rider Arnaud Coyot showed that the team still had some firepower left in its ranks. Cofidis won the first stage of the 2006 Tour de France with rider Jimmy Casper, in a chaotic sprint finish.
For the 2007 season the team has signed Belgians Nick Nuyens and Kevin De Weert from the Quick Step-Innergetic team.
