Maybe it was better this way. Sure, a victory would have been the perfect send-off, but perfection was never Thibaut Pinot’s calling card, especially here at the Tour de France. Nothing ever ran smoothly in July. Instead, each Tour seemed to bring only more friction between his hopes and fears, between his beliefs and doubts.
Pinot was blessed with the potential to win the Tour de France but doomed never to do so. Deep down, he might have suspected as much from the outset, but he never refused his burden. Time and again, the Groupama-FDJ rider lifted himself to tilt once more at the windmill, cycling’s most relatable champion. You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.
In the last years of his career, blighted by a back injury in 2020 and 2021, Pinot accepted publicly that he would never win the Tour, but that did nothing to dampen the fervour his very presence on the race seemed to inspire, nor did it ever truly temper the expectation he heaped upon himself.
Now 33 and in his final season as a professional, Pinot arrived at his last Tour with no designs on overall victory but with the same compunction to leave his mark.
He did it one last time on Saturday, when stage 20 brought the race deep into his native Vosges, across mountains he had climbed hundreds of times in so many solitary training rides. Pinot was again alone against the mountain and himself, but this time there were thousands upon thousands of fans screaming his name from the roadside.
They had been pitched outside the Groupma-FDJ bus before the start in Belfort, the familiar chant rising as he descended the steps: “Sha-la-la-la-la-la, Thiiiiii-baut Pinot.”
They were on all of the day’s six climbs singing the same song, too, with friend and former teammate Arthur Vichot among the self-styled ultras who had camped out on the ‘Virage Pinot’ on the Petit Ballon.
By the time Pinot reached that point on the course, he was alone at the head of the race. On the day’s third climb, the Col de Grosse Pierre, he fulfilled the first part of his task by bridging up to the day’s break, and he helped to push them a minute or so clear of the yellow jersey group on the Col de la Schlucht.
On the lower slopes of the Petit Ballon, Pinot lifted himself from the saddle and accelerated clear of the break with familiar, graceful pedal strokes. For a few dizzying kilometres, it looked as though he might even pull off the impossible as he beat a path through the walls of noise at the side of…
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