Success Quote by Laurent Jalabert

The Tour de France hangs over elite cycling like a fiscal year-end: everything else is quarterly reporting. Jalabert’s line reads like plain athlete-speak, but the intent is strategic signaling. He’s not just declaring ambition; he’s aligning priorities for sponsors, teammates, and rivals in one breath. “For a team as strong as ours” plants a flag of legitimacy, the kind of internal confidence statement that also doubles as external pressure. If you’re that strong, you’re obligated to perform where the sport’s spotlight is hottest.

The subtext is the quiet admission of cycling’s brutal hierarchy of value. One race can define a season, even a career. When he says the Tour will “always remain the biggest goal,” he’s acknowledging the sport’s cultural economy: TV hours, national prestige, sponsor ROI, legacy. Winning smaller stage races might feed the palmares, but the Tour feeds the mythology. That’s why the word “always” matters; it’s less about personal preference than submission to the ecosystem.

“Personally I will certainly concentrate most of my energy” does more than promise effort. It hints at the sacrifices baked into Tour preparation: skipping other targets, shaping training blocks, managing risk, and accepting that teammates’ ambitions may be subordinated to a single, collective objective. There’s also a soft politics here: a leader reassuring the room he’ll show up fully committed, warding off the suspicion every contender faces in a long season - that their focus might drift. In cycling, attention is a resource; Jalabert is announcing where he’ll spend it.