History
In 2000, the team again became a professional team Bonjour, still under the control of the sporting director Bernaudeau. In 2003, the team became "Brioches La Boulangère", then "Bouygues Télécom" in 2005. The amateur team Vendée U still acts as feeder team for the professional team.
As Bonjour and Brioches La Boulangère the team gained prominence with promising young stars Fabrice Salanson, Thomas Voeckler and Sylvain Chavanel. Salanson's death due to heart disease in 2003 was a blow to the team. Voeckler wore the maillot jaune for 10 days in the 2004 Tour de France while also French national champion and became a national hero.
The team competes mainly in French races. Chavanel left the team in 2005 to join Cofidis.
On 29 September 2009 Bbox Bouygues Telecom along with Cofidis were not allowed to renew their ProTour licenses due to poor results.
Read more about this topic: Team Europcar
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)