Discord at Groupama-FDJ: David Gaudu hits out at Arnaud Démare on social media
Gaudu says he and Démare are 'on a crusade' and that he doesn't want the sprinter at the Tour de France. He later apologizes.
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There is discord in the Groupama-FDJ camp after comments by GC man David Gaudu dissing sprinter Arnaud Démare were leaked on Twitter.
Gaudu’s comments, which were made on the Discord app, date back to just last week. In a series of posts, the 26-year-old said that he and Démare had a strained relationship and accused his older teammate of refusing to get into an elevator with him and trying to deliberately push him to the ground during some filming.
Gaudu also said that he and Démare hardly spoke and that he didn’t want his older teammate to go to the Tour de France this summer and had told him such.
“The war is not over. We are on a crusade. The advantage is that we don’t talk to each other, and we hardly ride together,” Gaudu wrote in the Discord chat.
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Gaudu added later: “If he wants me to tell him to his face, I can very well. I’m not afraid of him. He knows that I don’t want him at the Tour, I already told him.”
Screengrabs of the comments were posted on Twitter on Wednesday evening and have been viewed thousands of times already.
Groupama FDJ has not issued a statement on them, but Gaudu took to Twitter to apologize for them.
“My remarks should never have been made in a public setting. I apologized to the team and to Arnaud,” he wrote.
Démare and Gaudu have not raced much together in recent seasons and the only time the pair raced together in 2022 was at the Bretagne Classic in August. Gaudu rode the Tour de France last year and took fourth place overall.
Démare won three stages and the points jersey at the Giro d’Italia, but he is keen to get back to the Tour de France in 2023. Groupama-FDJ has not published the riders’ racing schedule yet.
OOF #Gaudu #Demare #GroupamaFDJ pic.twitter.com/BITp1BXN5J
— Nø skill (@Legendedurire) January 25, 2023
Mes propos n'auraient jamais dus être tenus dans un cadre public. J'ai pésenté mes excuses à l'équipe et a Arnaud
— David Gaudu (@DavidGaudu) January 26, 2023