2023-10-07 09:31:41
Thibaut Pinot will retire from sport on Saturday at the end of the Tour of Lombardy. An atypical cycling character, he will have left his mark on cycling fans and the 2010 decade more through his personality and the incredible nature of his defeats as well as his victories.
Thibaut Pinot is much more than just a runner. Even if in the age of ogres Primoz Roglic, Tadej Pogacar or Mathieu van der Poel, his track record may appear very poor, Thibaut Pinot will have marked French sport with his singular and timeless character, fleeing fame and its constraints for better return to his vegetable garden and his goats which he will return to after the Tour of Lombardy, which he will compete in for the last time in his career on Saturday October 7.
“Solo la vittoria è bella”, only victory is beautiful, proclaims, in Italian, the motto tattooed on the right arm of the 33-year-old Franc-Comtois. This gladiator’s maxim resembles him, those close to him assure, Thibaut Pinot hates losing so much. However, the familiar from the Vosges massif is better known and loved for his defeats, cruel and sublime, as well as for the emotions he sowed during his fourteen professional seasons. A mixture of very high and very low. As if measure did not exist when it comes to Thibaut Pinot.
The track record of the climber from the Groupama-FDJ team still looks good. 33 victories, most of them snatched from panache, including three stages of the Tour de France. With two others in the Vuelta and one in the Giro, he is part of the circle of holders of the triple crown of cycling. He also has a monument to his credit, this Tour of Lombardy on which he bids farewell.
“COME ON THIBAUT! COME ON BIG GUY! YOU’RE BIG TODAY!”
Marc Madiot, sporting director of Groupama-FDJ, drunk with joy at the arrival of his rider Thibaut Pinot #TDF2019 pic.twitter.com/7BWFeD4H59
— francetvsport (@francetvsport) July 20, 2019
But his failures have the beauty of a Greek tragedy, like when he ends up in an ambulance, sick as a dog, at the Giro in 2018, or when he abandons the 2019 Tour de France because of a mysterious injury in the thigh after raising the crazy hope of a first French victory since 1985.
“Being a fan of Thibaut couldn’t always have been easy. One moment it’s all white, one time it’s all black. But it’s part of the character. That’s why people love him so much. He will leave a big void,” his teammate David Gaudu told AFP.
Thibaut Pinot is tenacity. A runner who always knew how to raise his head despite the challenges. When he abandoned the Giro in 2018, he returned by winning two stages in the Tour of Spain and the Tour of Lombardy. So after his retirement in 2019, the little queen’s France held his breath, especially when he finished second in the Dauphiné a few days before the 2020 Tour. Alas, he was caught in a massive fall during the first stage causing back pain which will prevent him from returning to his highest level
A popularity that borders on the irrational
While in its beginnings, “Thib” sometimes annoyed with its grumpy, whiny and defeatist side, the sinusoidal trajectory of Mélisey’s magnificent loser, his doubts and his fragilities, forged, over the course of theatrical abandonments followed by flamboyant rebirths, a popularity that borders on the irrational.
No, I’m afraid of heights…
— PINOT Thibaut (@ThibautPinot) May 27, 2023
Collective hysteria reached heights during the last Tour de France where thousands cheered him in a “Pinot turn” staged from scratch in his native Vosges. A fan of PSG, “Tibopino” has his own kop of supporters and numerous accounts to his glory which he endorses with a certain sense of self-deprecation.
“People recognize themselves in him because he has remained simple and does not hide his emotions,” his father Régis underlined at the Tour, at the sight of the human tide who had come to bow before his son.
However, he loves nothing more than “silence” and taking care of his animals on his farm in Mélisey, in Haute-Saône. Asked about the first thing he was going to do once he retired, he replied: “go to the quiet garden, all alone in the vegetable garden”, between two games of fishing and pétanque, while dreaming of his project of setting up guest rooms or to feed the Instagram account of his goat Kim.
Pinot, who describes himself “as a little wild and shy”, continues to be surprised by his popularity and admits that his character exceeds him: “I always found that we perhaps did a little much”.
One anecdote among others can sum up his homebody character. In an interview published in the latest issue of Vélo Magazine, Thibaut Pinot explains having refused an invitation from Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy, in 2016. The reason given? A long-planned barbecue. His father, Régis, mayor of Mélisey, is nevertheless associated with the presidential party.
“Thibaut is a romantic lost in the 21st century”
“He doesn’t care at all about his icon status. He thinks about his life and his farm. He’s passionate about cycling but he doesn’t want to be a star. He prefers to be anonymous,” says the rider. Cofidis Anthony Perez, one of his best friends in the peloton.
In Mélisey, Pinot will leave without regret with ultra-pro cycling in which he no longer recognizes himself. “Today, cycling is about data, power curves, watts and he is out of step with that. He is a spontaneous, instinctive, authentic runner. Thibaut is a romantic lost in the 21st century,” his longtime manager, Marc Madiot, told AFP.
Pinot claims his “offbeat side”, he who refuses to “live like a monk in order to perform”.
Could he have gone further? Winning the Tour de France, while some believe that his improbable abandonment in 2019 was a kind of failed act given his lack of appetite to become someone “really famous”?
“We will never know,” says Madiot, who nevertheless notes “the paradox of a runner who we believe to be weak but who is in reality really tough”.
“I think he is happy above all with the mark he will leave on a human level. That of a guy who struggled, who experienced failures but who fought with his means, properly,” insists Pérez.
Although he may not have worn the yellow jersey in his career, Thibaut Pinot will remain one in the hearts of cycling fans.
With AFP
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