2011 Ag2r–La Mondiale season
The 2011 season for the Ag2r–La Mondiale cycling team began in January at the Tour de San Luis and ended in October at the Chrono des Nations.
[19] Later in March, Hinault took eighth at the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen – Harelbeke, a race dominated by Leopard Trek's Fabian Cancellara.
[20] The next day, Mondory took the team's best result in a single-day race which counted towards the UCI World Tour rankings by finishing fifth at Gent–Wevelgem.
[21] In April, Nocentini rode to tenth place at the GP Miguel Induráin,[22] and Roche did likewise at Paris–Camembert,[23] as did Goddaert in Tro-Bro Léon.
Shortly after the Tour de France, Ag2r had one of their better single-day finishes of the season with Chérel taking fifth place at Polynormande.
[32] Ravard was also the rider responsible for the team's lone single-day victory of the season at the Châteauroux Classic, where he raced as the defending champion and took his third career win in the event.
He, along with Philip Deignan and Chris Froome had broken away on the final climb of stage 3, 15 km (9.3 mi) from the finish line, and managed to stay away from the fast-charging peloton by a single second.
With Contador suggesting that he may tactically surrender the jersey on this stage,[57][58] the expectation was that the victor would come from a member of the morning breakaway.
[60] Gadret and Dupont then showed climbing prowess in the first of three consecutive high mountain stages that preceded the second rest day.
Gadret rode both the Giro and the Tour in 2010, an arrangement which resulted in some controversy when he refused to grant Roche, the squad's leader for the race, his wheel after the Irishman had punctured at a particularly inopportune time.
[65] This coupled with Gadret's recuperation after the extremely difficult Giro, and his admission that he prefers the Italian Grand Tour in any event, led to speculation as to whether the two would both be named to the squad.
[69] Hinault contested four sprint finishes in the first half of the Tour, but did not pose a serious challenge for victory in any of them, with fourth place in stage 3 his best result.
[74] He lost significant time in stage 14 on the Plateau de Beille, however, ceding six minutes to the race's top riders and falling to 18th.
He hoped to improve upon both his dismal Tour, which he admitted was hampered by a crash sustained shortly beforehand at the Critérium du Dauphiné, and his seventh overall in the 2010 Vuelta.
[80] Their performance in the third Grand Tour team time trial of the season was even worse than the first two, as they were a paltry 19th of 22, immediately putting Roche 42 seconds off the pace.
However, since this final climb was rather short, time gaps were small throughout the field, and this performance only gained Roche one place in the overall standings, moving him up to 25th.
[83] Stage 8 proved largely similar, as Rodríguez again won on a short, steep final climb, and Roche finished in the top ten on the day, 15 seconds back this time.
[84] Mondory contested two of the field sprints in the race's first week, but did not come particularly close to winning either, finishing eighth and then seventh in stages 2 and 7 respectively.
[85][86] Montaguti found a successful breakaway in stage 11, taking sufficient mountains points to earn the blue polka-dotted jersey for two days.
Roche also found a winning break in the second half of the Vuelta, joining 19 others to finish 1'33" ahead of the main field in stage 13.
