Armée de terre, officially Équipe cycliste Armée de terre, (UCI team code:ADT)[1] was a French UCI Continental cycling team. It was sponsored by the French Army and all the cyclists were professional soldiers. After competing with success in the French amateur structure, the team was registered as a Continental-level team from the beginning of the 2015 road cycling season until its disbandment at the end of the 2017 season.[2]
History
Amateur racing
The team was founded in 2010 by David Lima Da-Costa following a long history of the French Army supporting soldiers in their cycling careers, with the team's first season of racing being the 2012 cycling season. It was founded with the intention of aiding in the Army's recruitment efforts. The team offered unusual benefits to its riders, such as a potential career in the Army, accommodation and training facilities rarely provided by a domestic team. The team received approximately 40 applications from riders wishing to join it for its first season, which included top-level amateurs and some professional riders. The hiring process was made more complicated by the requirement to enlist the riders as soldiers.[3]
The team had a budget that would have supported a Continental team, but the management initially chose to set the team up to compete in the French domestic championship, the Division Nationale.[3] In the team's first season, it finished fourth in the second division of the Division Nationale and was promoted to the first division for the 2012 season.[4] After 22 victories in 2012, the team finished a close second in the 2013 Coupe de France Division Nationale 1, finishing behind Vendée U despite leading for three quarters of the season.[5][6] The team went on to dominate the 2014 domestic racing season in France, winning 61 races as they won the amateur Coupe de France.[5][7]
Continental team
Having received continued support from the military leadership for another four years, the team began exploring promotion to become a UCI Continental team, with support from civilian sponsors.[8] The success of this application was announced in December 2014, with the team finding out through a leak to the press. This promotion was complicated by the rules about French cyclists. Riders on UCI Continental teams are not considered professionals by the UCI, but the rules of French cycling mandate professional contracts for them. Since the riders on Armée de terre are soldiers rather than professional cyclists, a special exception had to be made to allow the team to compete.[9] The team retained several of its riders from the 2014 season into the international ranks, including French under-23 champion Yann Guyot.[9] The riders continued to live in the team's base, two to each room; if a race did not provide accommodation to the riders, they stayed in the nearest military barracks. Each rider did military training in the two months of the off-season, learning a military specialism as well as training as a cyclist.[10]
The team's jersey in this as in previous years is a camouflage design promoting the team's military foundation. The team's bicycles, provided by Mario Cipollini's company, are also decorated with a camouflage pattern.[11]
As the members of the Armée de terre team were all soldiers as well as cyclists, they all had military ranks. Most of them were graded as soldat de deuxième classe, the lowest rank in the French Army. Barbas, Le Roux and Levasseur were soldats de première classe, the next highest rank; Combaud and Guyot were caporaux, while Sinner held the equivalent rank of brigadier; Canal was a caporal-chef. The highest-ranked rider was Julien Gonnet, who was a sergent-chef.[17]
