Carlos Betancur will try to finish his difficult 2014 season with a positive accent and help his squad remaining in the top three of WorldTour overall team ranking, leading Ag2r La Mondiale in the Tour of Beijing held from October 10 to 14.

Betancur had a highly promising beginning of the 2014 season, winning Tour du Haut Var and Paris-Nice general classifications and taking three stage victories in the process, but the 24-year old Colombian became literally invisible shortly afterwards. Disappearing in South America, Ag2r La Mondiale rider never made it back to Europe for his Tour de France appointments, what made his squad furious and put them on a brink of releasing the rider from his existing contract.



The 24-year old puncheur acknowledged his mistakes and apologized to the team, though, and Ag2r manager Vincent Lavenu eventually decided to give the Colombian his last chance.

Participation in the Vuelta a Espana was certainly a kind of redemption for Betancur, who was forced to carry more than just a few additional kilos through Spanish mountains. The Paris-Nice winner finished the three-week event in a better shape and survived relatively long in the World Championship road race last Sunday, what makes the French team believe that he will handle a task of leading the squad in the Tour of Beijing.

"The Tour of Beijing is the last stage race of the WorldTour calendar and one of our goals is to get as many points as possible in this race to stay on the podium of the World standings,” said the team’s director Didier Jannel.

“We rely on Carlos Betancur, who improved his physical condition on the Vuelta a España and we expect he will be in a better shape after the Italian races. So, we will see what he is able to do in Beijing. Rinaldo Nocentini is also very motivated for this race and he finished sixth overall in 2011. He wants to end this season on a positive note by getting a good rank overall.”

The rest of the team includes Davide Appollonio, Maxime Daniel, Julien Bérnard, Mikael Cherel, Julian Kern and Alexis Gougeard, who will focus on breakaways and the sprint stages.