In thirteen years in the professional peloton, Thibaut Pinot has never won the Grande Boucle, but he has entered the hearts of the public like few riders before him.
It’s a page of history that is turning. Thibaut Pinot will hang up his last professional cycling bib on Saturday October 7 on the Tour of Lombardy, this Monument that he cherishes so much, and which he won in 2018. At 33, the emblematic leader of the Groupama- FDJ is preparing to leave behind a team, and more generally a sport, that he will have marked: “It’s going to be hard. We will have to turn the page. We don’t want this moment to ever happen. We’re going to have to go through a kind of mourning.” slips his teammate Rudy Molard. Marc Madiot, his one and only professional manager, takes the wheel: “We tell ourselves shit, he was different. We’re going to miss him. My whole family wanted to be there. That’s how it is, it can’t be explained…”
Proof of his special place in the French peloton, Thibaut Pinot will benefit from unique support in this final race. Several hundred members of the Ultras Pinot Collective have crossed the Alps. To pay tribute to him, the “CUP” has planned a unique spectacle for a cycle race: a procession and a tifo, like football fans. “It all started with a joke on WhatsApp, and here we are today”, laughs Humbert, one of the seven founders of this group to the glory of Thibaut Pinot, and who took the initials of the Collectif Ultras Paris from PSG. “When he goes to the Parc des Princes, Thibaut himself goes to sing with them, rather than in the box. This ultra group was the best way to follow him”justifies Humbert.
The chosen one of an entire people
For pedal enthusiasts Thibaut Pinot, this initially represented hope. That of finally seeing a Tricolor win in the Tour de France, something the country has been desperately waiting for since 1985 and the last coronation of Bernard Hinault. So when, for his first Tour in 2012, the rookie raises his arms on the 8th stage in Porrentruy before becoming the youngest French rider to finish in the top 10 of the Grande Boucle since Raymond Impanis in 1947, all dreams are permit. To the point that the Team headlined its front page the next day: “Will Pinot win the Tour?”
“We say to ourselves that we have found the chosen one to succeed Hinault. It’s a sporting favorite for a runner who has class, panache”remembers Humbert, quickly won over by this young rider, barely 22 years old, like the all-powerful Sky team at the time, which would never be able to convince him.
The tricolor hearts will, however, have to wait two years before capsizing again in the wheel of Pinot. After his retirement in 2013 due to angina, the climber returned to the Great Loop in 2014 for what will be his best vintage. At 24, Thibaut Pinot finished 3rd in the Tour de France, with the white jersey of best young person on his shoulders. The future looks bright.
Spearhead of Groupama-FDJ, the native of Lure will never again experience the joys of a podium on the Champs Elysées. Like his 2013 Tour, he then forms a close and non-consensual relationship with bad luck and the virus. Both push him sometimes to abandon, as in the 2016 and 2017 Tour, sometimes to revise his ambitions downwards. This is how in 2015, after a first week undermined by the cobbles of the North, he disappeared from the rearview mirrors of the favorites. Before getting back up, during the 20th stage, for a legendary victory at Alpe d’Huez.
Doctor Pinot, Mister Poissonard
This 2015 Tour alone sums up the rugged career of a climber on an emotional roller coaster. “He often got sick at the wrong time. It played tricks on him in his career. Without this…”imagines Rudy Molard, at his side from 2017 to 2023, who specifies: “On the other hand, contrary to what he told himself, he had a mind of steel”. Far from the fragile runner often portrayed, Thibaut Pinot had everything of a charismatic leader, assures Molard: “He knew how to unite around him. We were a group of friends, we went above and beyond for him. Sometimes, in the race, I set the tempo for him whereas in his absence, I would have been down for a while.”
“Thibaut transcended us, even in training. When I arrived at the FDJ, when I saw his appearance, I was amazed. It was another dimension.”
Rudy Molardat franceinfo: sport
All without ever raising his voice tinged with the Franche-Comté accent. At the FDJ, Thibaut Pinot happily left the role of big mouth to Marc Madiot. Which suited this shy, rather airheaded man well, the FDJ manager recognizes today: “When he knows people, he’s a messer. He lives in a fairly closed environment, his entourage is quite restricted. He is not an expansive person, he needs to know and know who he is facing. Afterwards, he lets go.”
“Party guy no, but joker yes. He’s a little mocking, but kindly. He has a lot of second degree. He’s a complete man. When you’re with him, you’re yourself.”
Rudy Molardat franceinfo: sport
Atypical, different, unique, simple, particular… When we approach the Pinot character in the world of cycling, his authenticity eclipses everything else. Ultra-offensive and incapable of staying in place in the peloton, the man who saw himself as a policeman or firefighter when he was little before dreaming of himself as Richard Virenque, has always stood out, both through his personality and the way he runs.
“He didn’t necessarily have the same ways of approaching things. Where we have convictions and certainties, Thibaut has doubts. We had to reassure him and at the same time he was confusing.” tries to summarize Marc Madiot. “We sometimes thought it would go to waste and he managed to win the race the next day.”
The Italian parenthesis
This unpredictability, for better or worse, made him a fascinating road convict. But that wasn’t the only card of this tough guy, who, despite his shyness, didn’t hide anything on the bike.”All champions go far in pain, but I have never seen anyone go as far as Thibaut, and it showed on the bike.”, assures Rudy Molard. On the other side of the screen, Humbert confides that Pinot’s humanity has only made him more appreciated: “He became more and more endearing in his doubts, his failures, his great successes.”
The main person concerned then felt the need to distance himself from a Grande Boucle which no longer favored him. In 2017, the man who never hid his interest in the rainbow world champion jersey and the pink tunic of the Giro, embarked on an Italian romance. “This 2017 Giro, where he finished fourth and won the queen stage, it’s my greatest memory with him”, rewinds Rudy Molard. There again: he will never do better. Third the following year on the eve of the finish, he abandoned the 2018 Giro due to pneumonia.
This Italian interlude will, however, see him realize one of his dreams: winning the Tour of Lombardy, in 2018, alone. This victory in the Monument of Autumn then serves as a trigger. After the impasse in 2018, Thibaut Pinot returns to the 2019 Tour de France knowing that he too has the right to win. And that changes everything. “This is undoubtedly his sporting peak, and he arrives liberated, with a lot of self-deprecation”, plays Humbert again. “Few athletes of his rank are so straightforward and natural in their communication. I love his frankness and the feeling that he could be a friend.”
The 2019 Tour, so close, so far
This 2019 Tour is about to push Thibaut Pinot into the legends of “French-style” losers. Already close to Raymond Poulidor for his local side, he who cuddles his animals on his Jura farm – to the point of having an Instagram account for one of his goats -, the Franc-Comtois becomes the contemporary version on the 19th stage.
While Julian Alaphilippe’s yellow jersey hangs by a thread, Pinot, winner a few days earlier at the Tourmalet, looms over the race. Only Egan Bernal manages to follow him. But, suddenly paralyzed by a thigh injury, he gave up in the 19th stage, leaving the Colombian to wear yellow.”It’s the biggest slap in my career.”confides the Frenchman in tears after this terrible outcome which, paradoxically, definitively changed his popularity rating.
“Tibopino” is no longer just the idol of romantic cycling purists, he is the cursed hero of a country. “We identify on a human level with this athlete who does crazy things and who also collapses, sometimes. It’s this destiny that brought him into people’s hearts.”believes Humbert, “He is not the only one to have faults, but the only one who assumes such big ones”summarizes Madiot with his sense of the formula.
The following ? A cascade of disappointments. Not really recovered from this blow, the leader of the FDJ approached the 2020 Tour in the worst possible way, falling in the Nice rain on the day of departure. Despite a bruised back, he made it to the end of this edition, without knowing that this fall would deprive him of the 2021 edition. So, when he announced, during the winter of 2023, his retirement at the end of the season, the The popular momentum is mobilizing. Scheduled for the Giro, where he will finish 5th, Thibaut Pinot is called by an entire country on the Tour route. Heeded, this call gives rise to the most incredible jubilees ever received by a cyclist.
A gentle sloping end
During the 20th stage, on its training routes, the Collectif Ultras Pinot (already him) gave him a monumental welcome in the Col du Petit Ballon. Escaping, Thibaut Pinot arrives alone in the lead, for one last colossal thrill, before being caught again. The wave of love he aroused comes back to him in the face. A few thousand people transform these Alsatian bends into a football stadium, under the eyes of Humbert: “We had people from all the stands in France, who came to cover songs from all the clubs, but rewritten for Pinot. Marseillais who sing PSG tunes, Stéphanois who sing with Lyonnais…”
The people of the Grande Boucle thus salute their hero, whom they will never have seen in yellow, but who will have left a greater imprint than many wearers of the precious tunic. Another point in common with “Poupou”. The real jubilee, however, will take place this Saturday October 7 on the roads of Lombardy. By his manager’s own admission, Thibaut Pinot’s mission today will be to take advantage of the moment and celebrate it as it should be. The future ? Nobody really knows him. “Thibaut sports director? Surely not. Maybe he’ll come back one day, but not right away anyway.” slice Marc Madiot.
The only certainty: those who appreciate nothing more than barbecues at the edge of their pond should quickly return to their farm in Mélisey, in the middle of their barnyard and football matches between friends. This summer, however, he made a promise at Virage Pinot, reveals Humbert: “Thibaut said the bend will not die. We don’t really know what he means by that, but we’ll see.”. In the meantime, the Franc-Comtois will have plenty of time to update his tattoo on his forearm which proclaims, in Italian, that “Only victory is beautiful.” After all, Thibaut Pinot proved the opposite for thirteen years.