Who is Kévin Vauquelin? | Cycling Weekly

There’s a green banner strewn across the front of the Joan of Arc school in Bayeux. It was printed specially for Thursday morning – the day the Tour de France came to town – and shows an old yearbook photo of a cropped-haired teenager. Alongside, there’s a stock picture of a cyclist, and a French tricolour, both apt symbols for the occasion. “Allez Kévin,” the banner reads. “Our former pupil.”

The barriers in front of the school trace 100m up to a car park, where the team paddock has assembled. In the middle, Arkéa-B&B Hotels’ bus is lively with reporters – a rare occurrence for the Tour’s French minnows. The press haven’t come to speak to the riders, though, nor the team bosses, but rather the family of Kévin Vauquelin, the local sweetheart, whose home is just a few pedal strokes from stage six’s départ.

Kévin’s mother, Valérie, appears at ease with the microphones. She speaks to the reporters as if they’re old family friends, holding eye contact, and keeping the conversation going well after the cameras have stopped rolling. Kévin’s father, Bruno, stands beside his wife in a black gilet, adorned with his son’s squad photo on the back. “I hope every parent gets to experience what we’re experiencing,” he says, a wobble in his voice. “He came second at the Tour de Suisse, now he’s first in the hearts of the French.”

Stage five’s time trial, held the previous afternoon, had only intensified the fever around the home hope. Fifth on the day, the 24-year-old’s time across the line was not enough to save his white jersey, but it catapulted him to third in the general classification, behind Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogačar. The wall of noise that welcomed him in Caen after his effort was so loud, passersby might’ve thought he’d won the stage. TV cameras flocked around him as he collapsed over his handlebars.