Lorina Limonade – Golfe du Morbihan wins Tour de France à la Voile
by A.S.O./Tour de France à la voile on 28 Jul 2016
Day 2 of Act 8 in Hyères - Tour de France a la Voile - 28 July, 2016 Jean-Marie Liot / ASO
With last Act in Nice still to come this weekend, Team Lorina Limonade – Golfe du Morbihan wins 2016 Tour de France à la Voile today in second day of Act eight in Hyères. With 56 point lead, Quentin Delapierre and Matthieu Salomon are mathematically out of reach, no matter what happens in the next two days of racing in Nice.
'We are so happy. We tried to give the best of ourselves and we wanted to win this day of racing so we could win the Tour on a high note. The day didn’t start well for us but we managed to get back in the game and win all following races. We are very proud of our team.'
'Last year I was with Groupama and we lost the Tour on the last day so I came back to win it this yeat. I think the strength of our team is our youth, our energy and a strong bond between us as we are all good friends. We’ve all been sailing together for years', said crew member Quentin Ponroy.
Team Lorina Limonade Golfe du Morbihan is also a family story, with Kevin Peponnet’s uncle Thierry Peponnet, and Bruno Mourniac’s dad Philippe Mourniac having both won Tour de France à la Voile before.
'Our domination is visible in terms of points but on the water we had to work really hard to get this victory. We were consistent and we won a lot of races because we never gave up. We were sailing flat-out all the time. It’s fantastic to win the title here in Hyères and go to Nice just to enjoy it', said Bruno Mourniac.
For podium second and third place, competition is much tighter. After today’s stadium racing, Crédit Mutuel de Bretagne takes second place back from Grandeur Nature Vérandas, but the two teams are just two points apart on the leaderboard.
'We had a tough time at the beginning of the Med stages but winning Act eight in Hyères brings our confidence back. We had a big debrief in the last few days and we keep working hard to get better and better. The good thing about our team is that we’ve always had a strong bond between the shore team and the sailing team. We are now more relaxed going to last Act in Nice. We just want to finish this Tour the best way possible.'
On Young and Amateurs rankings anything can happen too, and although Team Lorina Mojito – Golfe du Morbihan is getting stronger and stronger after each Act, Team France Jeune is only thirteen points behind.
'We will have to confirm tomorrow, but if we can finish tomorrow coastal race in the top six, we will be very stoked', said skipper Solune Robert. 'We are happy with the way we sail but we know we have to be a bit conservative at the starts in stadium racing because we could get black flagged like in Marseille. Good thing about tomorrow’s coastal race in Nice is that we have Gautier Germain onboard who comes from Nice. He will be sailing at home. We’ll do our best to sail a nice raid and be more relaxed on the last day.'
International Team Oman Airports won their second qualification in stadium racing grand final after a series of nice results (1-2-4-3). Co-skipper Stevie Morrison still aims for top five.
'We had good starts in qualifying races and that makes life easier, but the last race was all about the start because the standard is higher, and we didn’t have a good start in the grand final. We need to be a bit more aggressive. It’s good to be conservative in the earlier races because you want to avoid black flag. For us the whole of this tour has been a huge challenge on communication and roles and working as a team. We had a nit of bad luck with Thierry being injured because he’s one of the great sailors in the Tour and in all boats, so to not have him sailing is a massive loss. But equally we have very good sailors in the team and a good team can win even when the best player is injured. But for some reason we’ve struggled with that a little bit. We had a serious discussion about things yesterday, trying to make sure everyone was doing a role and today it was a much calmer boat, so if we can keep that same mentality tomorrow then we will have a good race.'
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