Jean-René Bernaudeau

Jean-René Bernaudeau 2013

Jean-René Bernaudeau (born July 8, 1956 in Saint-Maurice-le-Girard , Département Vendée ) is a former French professional cyclist and later team manager.

Career

He started in 1976 for France in the road race at the Summer Olympics in Montreal and came in seventh. A year later he drove the International Peace Tour and finished 24th in the overall classification. Jean-René Bernaudeau made his professional debut in 1978 with the French cycling team Renault-Gitane . In his first year as a professional he was third in the Vuelta a España 1978 . In the following Tour de France 1978 he took part as an assistant to the eventual winner Bernard Hinault and did not take part after the seventeenth stage.

At the Tour de France 1979 he again supported the winner Hinault and won the yellow jersey for one day on the second stage . He finished fifth overall and won the white jersey of the winner of the youth competition. In the same year he was third in the road world championships in Valkenburg, the Netherlands .

He remained successful in the next few years and won the French stage race Grand Prix Midi Libre four times in a row, in particular from 1981 to 1984 . Bernaudeau ended his career after the 1988 season.

In 1991 he founded the amateur team Vendée U , from which the Bonjour team operated by Bernaudeau's company SA Vendée Cyclisme formed in 2000 , which has since participated in international cycling races under different names .

doping

In 1982, Bernaudeau and four other drivers refused to face a doping test based on a criterion in Callac . He later explains that such controls are an interference with the right to work .