FDJ Cycling Team (Spain) - Press Release: They did it again, and they did it better. David Gaudu and Bruno Armitail teamed up last week to get the first Groupama-FDJ’s stage win on the Vuelta in La Farrapona. They did the same thing on Saturday in the final mountain stage of the 2020 Tour of Spain. The young French climber soloed to a second stage victory in the Alto de la Covatilla, but before his rise to the summit, he benefited from the huge and decisive work of Bruno Armirail in the breakaway, for nearly 150 kilometers. This magical duo struck once again in Spanish lands. As for the icing on the cake, David Gaudu climbed to eighth overall before the last stage in Madrid.

In a way, it was the day of the “last ones”: last mountain stage of the Vuelta, last mountain top finish of the 2020 cycling season, but also the last opportunity for the Groupama-FDJ cycling team to bring back an additional win. To get it at the top of the Alto de la Covatilla, which was supposed to make the final decision for the general classification, David Gaudu was obviously the best option for the French squad but he probably needed to be in the day’s break. “To be frank, we thought it was going to be complicated for me to go up front since everyone defends his place in the third week,” explained the young Frenchman, eleventh overall in the morning. “We knew there was going to be some action quite quickly and that some big moves could form,” said Thierry Bricaud. “If David succeeded in being there, we had to have Bruno there too. We know that David is a real threat in a breakaway, and Bruno was our best weapon to control that break.” It was actually the French time trial specialist who took the lead in the first place.