In Moirans-en-Montagne on Friday morning, there was the familiar crowd holding vigil outside the Groupama-FDJ bus. Jonas Vinegaard (Jumbo-Visma) might have the yellow jersey of this Tour de France, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) may continue to vie for the title of G.O.A.T., but Thibaut Pinot commands an adulation that goes far beyond the vagaries of form or the strictures of the results sheet.
Adherents of the Collectif Ultras Pinot, his self-styled fan club, have made regular, performative displays of their devotion across this, his final Tour appearance, but it was a slightly less boisterous demographic that awaited the Frenchman in the sleepy village of Moirans-en-Montagne before stage 19. Their acclaim was more restrained, but no less heartfelt for it.
When Pinot emerged from the bus and reached for his bike, he was greeted with a ripple of warm applause. A young man called Hugo was brandishing a cardboard sign bearing the hopeful legend, ‘Thibaut, please sign my bike’, and the clapping grew louder still when Pinot was alerted to the request and walked over to fulfil it.
“Bravo Thibaut, bravo,” one elderly woman cried out, cheering the act of courtesy with a sudden fervour that put one in mind of Marc Madiot’s exhortations when Pinot scored his maiden Tour stage win at Porrentruy in 2012.
“He’s different to the other big riders. He’s very humble and he shows his emotions,” said Hugo, who smiled after Pinot had scribbled his name on his top tube.
During his years on the Tour, Pinot has grown used to being public property, even if one senses he has never truly felt comfortable with the acclaim. On the eve of the 2019 race, for instance, this essentially private man was asked if he really even wanted to win the Tour at all, given all the attention that such a success would inevitably entail.
“It’s not an obsession,” Pinot admitted to L’Équipe back then. “I like my life as it is at the moment. It’s the life I dreamt of and if I win the Tour de France, I won’t have this life anymore. Do I want to change my life? No.”
It would prove to be the quintessential Pinot Tour. For almost three weeks, he looked increasingly like the best rider in the race as he moved to the brink of becoming France’s first Tour winner since Bernard Hinault in 1985. Then, two days from Paris, he suddenly and surprisingly abandoned with a torn thigh muscle, climbing tearfully into a Groupama-FDJ team car.
It was, in hindsight, the moment his…
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