Thibaut Pinot already enjoyed a farewell of sorts when he went on the attack on the penultimate stage of the Tour de France, roared on by thousands upon thousands of his home fans in the Vosges, but the Frenchman formally brings the curtain down on his career at Il Lombardia on Saturday.
Italy has always been a happy hunting ground for Pinot and it’s perhaps fitting that he signs off at the Race of the Falling Leaves, which he won in such assured fashion in 2018. Pinot is unlikely to repeat that feat this weekend, but that won’t matter a jot to the Collectif Ultra Pinot, who will form the Curva Thibaut on the final climb of the Colle Aperto.
Victory was only ever a part of the story for Pinot, as he explained in a long interview with Pierre Carrey of Le Temps on Friday. “When you love cycling, you don’t really care whether a rider wins,” Pinot said. “When you look at it, the power of sport isn’t about winning, it’s about sharing emotions, whether they’re good or bad.”
Ahead of Pinot’s final race, Cyclingnews looks back at some of the defining moments of a career that marked its era.
2012 – The Breakthrough
Thibaut Pinot’s victory at the 2009 Giro della Valle d’Aosta had marked him out as the coming man of French cycling, and he continued to underline that potential with some striking cameos on turning professional with FDJ the following year. FDJ – sensibly – spared Pinot from the rigours of Grand Tour racing in his first two seasons as a professional, but they tentatively pencilled him in for the Vuelta a España at the end of 2012.
Not for the last time, however, Pinot saw things a little differently to his manager Marc Madiot. La Planche des Belles Filles, a stone’s throw from his native Mélisey, featured on the Tour route for the first time that summer and Pinot was loath to miss out on the grand occasion. Against his own misgivings, Madiot was talked around, and Pinot was thrust onto the grandest of stages. Just weeks after his 22nd birthday, he was the youngest rider in the Tour.
At La Planche, Pinot would struggle under the weight of Sky’s relentless forcing and, perhaps, under the burden of his own expectations, but he would make amends in spectacular fashion a day later on the rolling road to Porrentruy. Pinot defied team orders to join a counter-attack midway through the stage before…
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