Rémi Cavagna: "I still have quite some goals and dreams for this season"

In early December, Rémi Cavagna suffered a serious injury in a training accident in what was one of the first training camps of the Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team. Having had broken a vertebra, it was evident that the recovery would be long and his early part of the season would be at risk, however the French national champion has undergone a successful recovery period and returned to competition a month ago tomorrow.

In an interview with the team, he's said: “Missing out on the training camp was difficult. My teammates put in a lot of work there for the new season, while I had to wait. In the end I think I was lucky, I missed one month of training, but it could have been worse. I have no pain anymore, everything is okay, so I’m just excited to do what I love the most, ride my bike and try to win races with Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl."

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He's returned to competition at Milano-Torino, and followed an Italian calendar where he formed a strong duo with Josef Cerny to cross the line together in success at the final stage of the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali: “I feel that I am gradually reaching the form that I want. Coppi e Bartali was the first stage race I did since my comeback. I was at Milano-Torino and Milano-Sanremo beforehand, but Coppi was really the first race again with multiple days in a row. I really wanted to show something and in the final stage with Josef we put on a beautiful show."

He went on to finish third in the opening prologue of the Itzulia Basque Country, assuring him he's close to his best: "Basque Country was hard last week, it’s the hardest race in the world, but it was a good stage race to work towards reaching a good form. I missed one month of racing because of my crash at the training camp, so I was afraid I would miss out on a solid condition, but it’s going well.”

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“I still have quite some goals and dreams for this season. I want to win races, also time trials, which are important to me. I will do the Tour de Romandie at the end of the month, which will put on the table two individual time trials," he added, with the initial prologue and leader's jersey very much on the table for the Frenchman," he said. After racing Brabantse Pijl this week, he will be at the Tour de Romandie targeting his first win of the season.

"I won an ITT in Romandie last year and we will see how far I can get this time. There are still plenty of races to come, I can’t wait. And it’s a pleasure to ride in my National Champion jersey, now I’m already used to it but I still try to enjoy every moment I get to wear it. I hope to raise my hands in this beautiful jersey this season, that’s the biggest goal at the end of the day," Cavagna concluded.