2024-01-05 22:01:12
Thibaut Pinot, a pint in hand, toasting with a smile with Richard Plugge, the Dutch manager of the Jumbo-Visma team… This could pass for a banal photo, taken at random from a meeting in the sports resort of winter of Tignes, and posted on Instagram. But, placed in the perspective of the last Tour de France, the scene takes on its full flavor.
In July, a controversy had in fact opposed Thibaut Pinot’s Groupama-FDJ and the formation of Jonas Vingegaard, the Dane winner of the Grande Boucle.
Plugge, whose team was the target of suspicions of doping, had emphasized the discipline reigning within his team, scratching in the process the lack of professionalism displayed by that of Marc Madiot and Pinot. “For example, we were with a French team at our hotel during the rest day,” Plugge declared in l’Equipe. We saw runners drinking large beers. Alcohol is poison…”
Obviously, Madiot had only moderately appreciated the Dutch manager’s assertion and had denied the fact that his riders drank beer during the event. Quite sharply. “Let him shut his mouth,” said the historic manager of the FDJ. Let him shut his mouth! On the day of rest, there is traditionally a drink with the staff. The staff drank beers. But only Perrier riders…”
Six months have passed and the controversy has gone viral. Thibaut Pinot, 33, has hung up his bike and now feels justified in drinking a beer, or even offering one to Richard Plugge. Until immortalizing the sequence and publishing it on Instagram. This fits perfectly with the simplicity, sportsmanship and mischief that the young ex-champion has always demonstrated during his career.
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