‘It’s still 50-50’ – Lafay mulls retirement despite Guangxi near miss

There is always cacophony at the finish of a bike race, even somewhere as remote as Nongla. A local band of drummers was performing to greet the arrival of stage 5 of the Tour of Guangxi, and when the riders spilled across the line in ones and twos, they could hardly hear themselves think, far less make out what their soigneurs were telling them.

After coming home second behind Paul Double (Jayco-Alula), Victor Lafay draped himself across his handlebars while a Decathlon-AG2R soigneur held vigil with a recovery drink. He crouched staring at the ground for a moment before smiling resignedly as he looked up and accepted the bottle.

Lafay has endured two years plagued by injury and illness since he swapped Cofidis for Decathlon-AG2R, and those travails have led him to re-evaluate his life as a professional cyclist. Still only 29, Lafay confessed to Daniel Benson last month that he was considering retirement, with running a cheese shop in Japan among the myriad possibilities that lay before him in civilian life.

Yet despite pondering that existential question, Lafay has enjoyed a fine autumn, producing his best run of displays since he snared a stage victory on the 2023 Tour de France. Earlier this month, Lafay found himself trading blows with Tadej Pogacar at Tre Valli Varesine. On Saturday, he was stronger than men like Jhonatan Narváez and Cian Uijtdebreks on the stiff climb to Nongla.

Lafay clearly has the legs to stay in the professional peloton for many years to come, but before he rode back down the mountain on Saturday, he confessed that he’s still trying to figure out if he has the head for this game anymore. 

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s easier to stop when you’re on top form than when you’re struggling and already forgotten,” Lafay said, his voice just about carrying over the drumming of the band behind him. “It wouldn’t be bad to go out at the top. If I stop, it will be to do other sporting projects, so it’s better if I’m not physically ruined.”

Last season, a knee injury kept Lafay out of action until July, though he finished his season on a high with fourth place here in Guangxi. The same issue recurred this year after a crash at Milan-San Remo and he eventually underwent surgery in May. By the time he returned to competition at the Tour de l’Ain, he was already contemplating hanging up his wheels when his contract with Decathlon expires at the end of this year. The decision, he explained, is still pending.

“I wanted to take a decision before coming here, but circumstances have meant it’s taken a bit of time,” Lafay said. “So I’m really at 50-50.”

Whatever about the future, Lafay was fully invested here. He arrived in China eager to apply the lessons learned on his visit to Nongla twelve months ago, and Decathlon entered stage 5 with Lafay and Aurelien Paret-Peintre deployed as a double act. Paret-Peintre’s crash at the foot of the climb would prove a loss, as there was a dearth of bodies to chase down the stage winner Double’s attack early on the ascent. 

“We wanted to play with our numbers, but we lost Aurelien Paret Peintre just before the bottom of the climb, and he was the card we wanted to play, along with me,” Lafay said. “UAE maybe played a bit too much, attacking in all directions. It’s a bit of a shame because I think I had the legs to win.”

Lafay rolled the dice inside the last 500 metres, attacking ahead of the steepest portion of the climb. He ripped away from Narváez et al, but he had too much ground to make up on Double, and he would come home nine seconds down on the Briton.

“I had really put it in my head to give it everything from the left-hand corner. Last year, I saw it wasn’t that steep, so I put it in the small ring in front, and I anticipated the others,” Lafay said. “I wasn’t sure if someone was still ahead, but I could see a motorbike in front so I guessed there was, and then I saw the Jayco rider.

“He must have done a big effort to get a lead like that, so I don’t know if I had the possibility to do better. But if Aurelien hadn’t fallen, he might have been able to ride in the moment where the race was lost…”

Whatever the final decision, it would have been quite a way to go out.