Telecom troubles


Fedrigo: mobile and often hands free

I’ve written a couple of time that for a team sponsored by a telecoms company, Bbox-Bouygues Télécom really doesn’t showcase its products. Not one rider uses Twitter, the perfect medium to highlight the mobile network and demonstrate new phones.

Weak signal
Worse, it seems people on the team are struggling to master the basics of telephone etiquette. Cyclismag reports that when Pierrick Fedrigo won the Criterium International, dropping Machado, Evans, Sanchez et al in the spring, team boss Jean-René Bernaudeau didn’t bother to call and congratulate his rider. Instead he sent an SMS, only Fedrigo never got the message… Bernaudeau said he thinks he sent it to the wrong person.

Now Fedrigo has just announced his move to FDJ. Only he didn’t bother to call Bernaudeau, he instead called Assistant DS Didier Rous. You’d think after years of working together that a simple phone call to the boss would be in order but, no, Fedrigo said “he never calls me. He gets Didier to call me. I therefore informed Didier that I was leaving. I certainly won’t call Jean-René“.

Low battery

Yesterday it was reported that an “announcement is imminent” regarding the whole team but we also learned that Nicolas Vogondy is in talks with Cofidis. With William Bonnet leaving, and rising talent Steve Chainel also on the move, the rump of riders left at the team is looking weaker by the day. Any potential sponsor might soon get cold feet knowing that their money won’t buy the same results.