Philippe Gilbert (Lotto Soudal) may or may not win on Sunday in Paris-Tours, the last race of his glittering career. But as Gilbert sees it, what’s mattered to him the most in the last few months is that this weekend he will still be a player in the game, right until the very last metre of racing on Tours’ Avenue de Grammont.
As one of the greatest and most versatile racers of modern cycling, the 40-year-old Belgian has taken four of the five Monuments, the 2012 Road World Championships, stages in all three Grand Tours and a host of other top victories.
Yet as Gilbert revealed in a lengthy interview on Friday with various media outlets, after two decades of racing the time has come to look forward to a very “different kind of life, with different motivations and different goals.”
While as communicative as ever about his career, Gilbert remained tight-lipped about his post-racing future, simply saying that it will be revealed shortly. Cyclingnews understands from other sources, however, that rumours he could remain with Lotto Soudal as a director or even take on a more senior managerial role are likely to prove unfounded.
Meantime in the countdown to Paris-Tours, Gilbert was still looking as much back at his career as he was forwards, and as the Lotto Soudal racer sees it, he will be heading out of racing in the right way.
“I was quite strong the last month,” he said. “After the Tour de France I was getting better and better and I still could do some good work for Arnaud De Lie at Paris-Bourges on Thursday.”
“This is what I was working for: I didn’t want to have an anonymous finale to my career, counting down the days. I really wanted to be able to do something and enjoy myself.”
With that in mind, Gilbert said he had no desire to go into Paris-Tours, a race he won twice early in his career, (and which in 2008 was a hugely emotional farewell victory to his first pro team, Française des Jeux) thinking that the rest of the peloton might do him some favours and gift him a last chance to raise his arms aloft in victory. Rather, he said, he wanted to be certain that it had been a battle all the way to the finish of the race and his career.
“I hope they don’t just let me pass through the middle of the peloton without a struggle and that there won’t be any ‘presents’,” Gilbert said. “I hope they go on fighting the same way with me as usual and we’ll have a normal race.”
The weekend will see the lights go out on Gilbert’s…
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