After previously competing together with the Agritubel and Vacansoleil DCM teams, then going their separate ways, the Feillu brothers will once again don the same team colours in 2014 after both signed contracts with a French team.
The duo will be part of the Bretagne-Séché Environnement setup next season, and are looking to once again get back to their best form.
Brice Feillu signposted his talent in 2009 when he took a Tour de France mountain stage victory on Andorra Arcalis, winning from a break on the day when Alberto Contador stole a march on then-Astana team-mate Lance Armstrong and the other contenders.
That victory suggested a bright future, but he has been unable to match the same form since. His best results include third on a stage of the 2012 Vuelta a Castilla y Leon, four top-ten finishes on stages of that year’s Volta a Portugal and sixth overall in the same race. He was also eighth in the 2012 Klasika Primavera in Spain.
Good, but not the same as his Tour success.
While Brice Feillu is a climber, his brother Romain is a sprinter. He has been with Vacansoleil since 2010 while his sibling spent one year there, then went to Leopard Trek in 2011 and Saur Sojasun in 2012.
His own results have been considerably more successful, although it’s admittedly easier for a sprinter to clock up high finishes than it is for a climber.
Winner of the GP Fourmies in 2009, he repeated that victory the following year and also took stages of the Tour de l’Ain and the Vuelta a Burgos.
The 2011 season brought no less than eight wins; the overall classification plus a stage in the Tour de Picardie, the Tour du Finistère, three stages in the Tour of the Mediterranean, plus stages in the Circuit de Lorraine and the Tour de Luxembourg.
Since then the closest he’s got to the top of the podium has been two runner-up places in the GP Pino Cerami, but he’s still a very fast rider; he and Bretagne-Séché Environnement will hope the 29 year old can spray champagne once again in 2014.
According to the team’s directeur sportif Emmanuel Hubert, who worked with the duo before while with Agritubel, Brice Feillu signed for a neo-professional salary. The 28 year old therefore knows that he’s got to knuckle down to rediscover his previous form. His career arc hasn’t been what it should, and it’s time to step things up a notch.
Hubert was speaking to Le Télégramme and said that the team had the ambition of riding the Tour de France. The two brothers will be part of the push for selection, and know that successful results will boost the chances of that.