Every time Thibaut Pinot won, France woke up with a hangover

Bernard Hinault was the last. After him, no Frenchman won the Tour de France. The French public had been waiting for 27 years when Thibaut Pinot broke through in 2012. His victory lap in Porrentruy was magical, but it was only on the Alpine summit of La Toussuire - Les Sybelles that Pinot's climbing ability really became apparent. He would become the new Hinault; all of cycling-loving France was counting on him. Pinot couldn't handle the pressure, he became the new Raymond Poulidor. A champion and a martyr in one.

Pinot turned pro at nineteen, and in the white jersey of Francaise des Jeux he was allowed to make his debut at the highest level in 2010. He was right at the front and won the mountain classification at the Tour de Romandie. That year he also finished fifth in the Tour de l'Ain and rode well in the Critérium du Dauphiné. Even a year later, he posted great results, with many victories in somewhat smaller rounds. The youngster did not ride a grand tour in those two years.

Pinot was not supposed to ride the Tour de France in 2012, but won immediately

In 2012, the cycling world could not really ignore the great talent Pinot. He just missed out on a top ten finish at the Tour de Romandie and for a long time seemed to be on his way to a top ten finish at the Tour of Switzerland, until he had to give up on the final stage. His form was good, however, and team boss Marc Madiot saw a lot in his poulain. When leader Arnold Jeannesson dropped out for the Tour de France injured, the still very young Pinot (22) was called up. It would be the definitive breakthrough of his career. The first of many peaks.

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While the entire cycling public is swooning over the performance of the flamboyant Peter Sagan in the opening week of the Tour, Pinot is riding around in anonymity. In the last stage in line before the first rest day, Pinot decides it's time to showcase his talents to the stage. He does just that in the Jura. He slid into the breakaways at the right times and unloaded his opponents (including guys like Tony Gallopin) one by one. Behind him, the favorites bombarded each other: Cadel Evans and Jurgen Van den Broeck tried to ride Bradley Wiggins out of the yellow jersey, forcing Pinot to work incredibly hard to stay in front. With the loud shouts of Madiot at his side, Pinot popped to victory. His career has begun.

Pinot appears to be more than a stage hijacker

But there are more great performances by Pinot in the 2012 Tour, and one of them is Pinot's real birth as a classification rider. The ride through the Jura was magical, but in the Alps, the young Frenchman shows that he can hold his own even against the best climbers in the world.

The 11th stage of the Tour de France will go from Albertville to La Toussuire - Les Sybelles, a well-known ski resort. In 148 kilometers, the riders have to cross the Col de la Madeleine (outer category), the Col de la Croix de Fer (outer category), the Col du Mollard (second category) and the climb to La Toussuire (first category). A murderous stage, then, designed for the pure climbers. The classification riders are going all out to ride time trial canon Wiggins out of the yellow jersey, and they almost succeed.

Evans already attacks on the Croix de Fer, but does not get far. On La Toussuire, the attacks are more successful. Van den Broeck rides away, along with Janez Brajkovic and, you guessed it, Pinot. The three grab half a minute before Vincenzo Nibali jumps to the trio. The Italian, along with Evans, is Wiggins' biggest challenger at that point, so the Sky train picks up the pace. Fränk Schleck and Evans can then no longer keep up with Chris Froome's pace. Right-hander Froome and leader Wiggins have to work together to catch the breakaway men.

Wiggins and Nibali can't follow Froome, but Pinot can

The duo succeeds and calm seems to return to the favorites, until Froome accelerates! The Brit sets off and the entire favorite group falls apart. Van den Broeck is not with them and even Nibali is in trouble. Startled, Froome looks behind him, because still behind those men is his leader. As he looks back, however, he sees one rider in his wheel: Pinot is the only one able to follow.

Froome waits, picks up Wiggins and recovers the situation. Everything comes back together and Pinot cannot stay out of the grip of that group, but he impresses. The stage win goes to lone leader Pierre Rolland, who manages to hold on from the early breakaway. 55 seconds behind him, the favorites sprint for second place. Wiggins, Nibali and Van den Broeck again cannot follow Froome. The Brit would like to win the sprint for the honor, but again there is that liddy Frenchman. Pinot gets off Froome's wheel, puts his bike next to his and throws his wheel in front of the Brit's. Pinot comes second, Froome third. Everyone now knows that Pinot can do it even against the very greatest. He makes the French dream with his stage win and tenth place in the general classification. 2013 has to be his year.

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Pinot and his fear of descent: the lost year of 2013

Even a year later, he clearly peaks at the right time. Pinot finishes fourth in the Tour of Switzerland, but the Tour de France ends in a total deception. The still young Frenchman is one of the favorites for the white jersey, but will never see the top 25 overall.

The FDJ leader is in fine shape in the general classification after seven stages. He is 41st, less than a minute behind general classification leader Daryl Impey. The peloton is getting ready for the first real test of the Tour: the stage to Ax-3 Domaines. On the tough Port de Balès, the peloton is already thinned out considerably, but Pinot is well in the middle of the group. On the descent, however, he falls further and further back. And further, and further. Suddenly no one is behind him and he sees the peloton pulling away from him. He simply cannot keep up and is left far behind. Defeated, he rides to the top of Ax-3 Domaines. He loses six minutes. Unable to recover, he leaves the Tour ingloriously after fifteen stages. At that point he is 52nd in the general classification.

So have the French been mistaken about their poulain? Is Pinot much less good than it seems? In the Vuelta, the public will get the answer. The youngster wants to revenge himself in Spain and does so with bravado. He is still scared in the descents, but comes along much better with the favorites. He finishes seventh in the general classification. France continues to dream. Over the winter, he gets lessons in a race car to get used to riding at high speed. This is how his team hopes he will be back to his old self in 2014.

Pinot's resurrection: Tour de France podium + white jersey

It is paying off. Pinot is picking himself up as a rider and coming back strong in 2014. He is still competing for the junior jersey and will face competition there mainly from his compatriot Romain Bardet. He, too, is a strong, young classification rider and the French would love to see one of them win the Tour de France one day.

Froome and Alberto Contador are the two big favorites for the yellow jersey, but due to a number of hard falls, both men can never really compete for the win. Consequently, they will not make it to Paris. Nibali is the laughing third. The Italian reigns supreme throughout the entire lap and rides his closest competitors to gigantic delays. Behind him, the French ride a great Tour. Pinot can follow uphill the longest and rides better than rival Bardet. In the final time trial, Pinot is still overtaken in the classification by Jean-Christophe Péraud. It should not spoil the fun, Pinot stands on the final podium with the white jersey around his shoulders.

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New deception in 2015: romantic downfall

Those who thought the way up was set, are sorely mistaken! Thibaut Pinot disappointed in 2015 in a way only he can: full of romance. Pinot did not start his Tour well and lost over a minute in the fans to Neeltje Jans. Unpleasant, but no man overboard. One stage later, however, things go completely wrong for Pinot's FDJ team. In preparation for the Wall of Hoei, captain William Bonnet gets involved in the heavy crash that also includes Tom Dumoulin and Fabian Cancellara. The race is neutralized. Pinot can no longer think about the race and his legs lock up. His buddy Bonnet, crumpled on the roadside. The young Frenchman is passed by everyone and loses another minute and a half. His humanity is appreciated and the French are just beginning to embrace Pinot's volatility.

In the general classification, things are no longer going well for Pinot, but what better way to end the Tour de France than by winning the very last mountain stage? He slides into the breakaway and fights a nice duel with Ryder Hesjedal. Pinot leaves him behind and finishes the Tour de France in style. He wins on the Alpe d'Huez. You will fail so successfully. France loves him.

Pinot no longer wants the Tour rush: it's time for the Giro d'Italia

After another catastrophe in 2016, Pinot is fed up. In 2017, he will go to the Giro d'Italia. He wants to feel less pressure. It goes well for him! He wins the mountain stage to Asiago and narrowly misses the final podium. He likes Italy and his fifth place in the Tour of Lombardy confirms that he can race well in that country. In 2018, he set himself the same goals: the Giro and Lombardy.

In the Giro, Pinot fails once again with resounding success. After nineteen stages, he is third overall. The podium is within reach! On the penultimate day, however, the leader sees everything slip by him. He finished 88th and dropped to 16th place in the general classification. He is taken by ambulance to the hospital with symptoms of exhaustion. He will not make it to Rome.

Pinot achieves his greatest success at the Tour of Lombardy and returns to the Tour

Pinot, however, comes back again and rides the best autumn of his career. He wins two stages in the Vuelta and finishes sixth overall. He then heads back to Italy, where he will compete against Nibali in the Tour of Lombardy, Nibali's home race. Pinot knows Nibali is better in the downhill, but the Frenchman climbs better. He unloads Nibali with great panache and manages to beat the Hay of Messina in his own territory. Pinot will later describe this as the biggest win of his career.

He returns to the Tour de France in 2019 and has big goals. Chris Froome's hegemony was broken in 2018 by out-and-out teammate Geraint Thomas. The race is wide open, and all the more so if Froome cannot start due to a hard crash in the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Pinot is perhaps the best of them all, but he loses time in the fan stage to Albi. However, he fights himself back into the GC and wins in very nice fashion on the Col du Tourmalet. A day later he showed that he really can win the Tour. In the stage to Foix he shows Thomas, Egan Bernal, Steven Kruijswijk, Emanuel Buchmann and Julian Alaphilippe all how good he is. Only early fugitive Simon Yates stays out of the Frenchman's grasp. Pinot is back. He can win the Tour, if all goes well.

Gigantic drama in the 2019 Tour de France: Pinot has to give up injured

But all does not go well. He suffers a muscle injury in his left thigh and can barely walk. After eighteen stages, Pinot is fifth overall, 1.50 minutes behind leader Alaphilippe, but only twenty seconds behind number two Bernal. In the nineteenth stage, Pinot tries to deal with the pain, but after forty kilometers he gives up crying . Comforted by the very road captain William Bonnet. A documentary released later shows him crying in his hotel room in conversation with team boss Madiot. Pinot even hesitates to stop racing at that point.

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Once again, Pinot will not make it to Paris in 2020. He falls in the opening stage of the Tour de France and has to give up with back problems. Those problems continue to bother him for years. In 2022, he finally had enough. His career seems to go out like a candle. France is waiting for a comeback; that comeback will not come. Pinot will ride one more year, purely for fun. Without pressure from the public, he can't handle that anymore.

The unexpected resurgence in 2023 with a great Giro d'Italia

Suddenly Pinot seems to be freed from his demons. 2023 will be one of the more successful years of his career. Pinot rides a stellar Giro d'Italia and finishes fifth overall. He also takes the mountain jersey. Earlier, he also finished fifth in the Tour de Romandie and even in the Tour de France, he repeatedly put his head in the window. The images of Pinot in the lead in the very last mountain stage of the Tour de France, in his Vosges, on his Petit Ballon, with all his supporters on their feet, will not soon be forgotten.

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But what will also not be forgotten is the way he failed so many times romantically even in his senior year. No one of his generation could come up so successfully short. 'Eternal second' Raymond Poulidor did it for him back in the last century. Pinot could have won a stage at the Giro in 2023, but he was too worried about an EF Ecuadorian. Who won? None of them. Einer Rubio of Movistar cleverly took advantage of the situation. Two months later, Pinot would not have had to attack so early in the Vosges stage in the Tour, perhaps he would have had more energy and could have even won at Le Markstein (hard to imagine scenario, but possible somewhere).

That, however, is not how Thibaut Pinot is put together. Pinot races by panache, by feeling. When he attacks, he attacks with complete abandon. When he unloads at an important moment, he cries water barrels full. Pinot's career is one big "what if" scenario.

What if Pinot had been less unlucky?

What if... What if Pinot didn't have descent anxiety? What if Pinot wasn't exhausted? What if he was less likely to lose time in the fans? What if his femur had remained in one piece? What if he hadn't fallen on his back in 2020? What if he had worried less about that Ecuadorian in the Giro?

What if he did win? Lots of Frenchmen have won the Tour de France, but do you remember Roger Pingeon? Or Roger Walkowiak? Or more relevantly, Lucien Aimar? When Poulidor was finally freed from the stranglehold of Jacques Anquetil, everyone thought he would finally win the Tour. He didn't win, Aimar won. Maybe you know his name, maybe not. No doubt Poulidor's name rings more bells than Aimar's name, even though Poulidor never won. His myth has always lived on. Perhaps Pinot's romantic failure is the best thing that could have happened to him. With all the ultras on his side, Pinot got the most romantic farewell we know in our sport. In his beloved Tour of Lombardi, a special Pinot turn was made. A perfect farewell. Every time Thibaut Pinot won, France woke up with a hangover. Partly because of the party afterwards, but perhaps also because it really shouldn't have happened.

By the way: one of Pinot's worst uphill performances in that 2012 Tour de France, was in his Vosges. On his Planche des Belles Filles, the day before his breakthrough in the Jura. In that Tour, he rode almost every mountain stage better than the one through his home region. The early signs of romantic failure at high pressure, were already apparent in his younger years.