Second Edition News for January 10

Criterium International Route

The Criterium International will take place, as last year, in the Tarn departement of southern France, the home area of Laurent Jalabert. Jalabert won the race overall last year, after earlier winning Paris--Nice and Milan--San Remo, with a notable performance on the mountain stage from his home town of Mazamet to the summit finish on the Pic de Nore. Stage 1 of the race, on 30 March, is 191km from Gaillac to Gaillac, Stage 2 on 31 March in the morning repeats last year's 80km ride from Mazamet Aussillon to Pic de Nore, and in the afternoon Stage 3 is a 7km time trial in Castres.

The GP du Midi Libere in June will also include Mazamet as a stage town, the Route du Sud a few days later will include sections in the Tarn, and the French road championships at the end of June will be at Castres. The hyperbole of Laurent Jalabert's younger brother and fellow pro can be forgiven: "The Tarn is going to be the centre of the world in 1996," he said at the Criterium Intenrational presentation.

Money Still A Sticky Problem For French Teams

With the date for French teams lodging guarantees of three months' salaries for their riders now overdue and the European season beginning on 6 February, so far only two of the six teams proposed have fulfilled this obligation, the French federation (FFC) has announced. The two are GAN and La Mutuelle de Seine-et-Marne (together with the pro mountain bike team Sunn-Chipie).

Agrigel-La Creuse has promised to lodge its "garantie bancaire" in the next 48 hours (as of January 9) and Aubervilliers-93-Peugeot this Thursday. This leaves ForceSud and the team planned by former Chazal supremo Vincent Lavenu. Both have promised to make their positions clear to the FFC this week. All this "mess" (cafouillage), as L'Equipe dubs it, has led the FFC and the French professionals' league to propose that in future seasons teams should lodge a written statement of intent from their principal sponsors as soon as a project is announced together with a deposit of 5% of the proposed budget, all with the object of ensuring that riders do not have the unpleasant surprise of finding themselves under contract to teams that cannot pay them anything.