This will be Bernard Hinault’s last Tour de France. It is 30 years since The Badger retired from racing on the back of five Tour wins, since when he has worked in the race organisation in a variety of roles, most recently as an ambassador, with the post-race protocol topping his personal brief. His impending departure will be acutely felt: if there is not even a past French Tour victor to be found somewhere in the caravan, that will again underline how long it is since the French won the race they gave to the cycling world. It is not quite English football and the 1966 World Cup, but the years of hurt go back 31 Julys, to Hinault’s victory in 1985.
Hinault will be missed in another way, too: for his blunt utterances on his successors. It would be inaccurate to call him the conscience of French cycling but he has never been under any illusions about its capacity to lay the national ghost to rest, no matter how the media might inflate their chances. His recommendation to them has always boiled down to one brutally simple – his critics would say simplistic – command, attack.
This year, Hinault came closer than ever before to conceding that a Frenchman might have an outside chance of winning, which stems from the fact that since 2011 the home nation’s fortunes in their race have been on an upward curve. France can now boast three riders with the potential to make the podium – Thibaut Pinot, Romain Bardet and Warren Barguil – and a host of possible stage winners.
“Nothing is written. They need to stick their necks out,” says Hinault, harking back to the example of France’s last near-winner, Thomas Voeckler, in 2011. “He went for it a long way from the finish and it nearly worked. If Cadel Evans [the eventual winner] hadn’t chased when Voeckler was away on the stage to Saint-Flour, Voeckler would have won the Tour.
“In terms of pure power we don’t have riders who dominate in the mountains or against the watch, so there is no clear-cut [French] chance of winning the Tour, but there are plenty of things to target.”
The recent progress in French cycling cannot be denied. In 2011, Voeckler finished fourth overall to Evans having worn the yellow jersey until the 18th stage; in 2012, there were mountain stage wins for Pinot and Pierre Rolland. Two years later, Jean-Christophe Péraud and Pinot came second and third overall to Vincenzo Nibali, albeit without ever looking like possible winners. Last year, Bardet and Pinot managed mountain stage victories and Barguil finished 14th in his first Tour in spite of a broken bone in his knee.
The optimism for the short and medium term is understandable. The trio share relative youth: Barguil is 24, Bardet, 25, Pinot, 26. With echoes of Hinault, all have shown what the French term caracture, the ability to overcome obstacles. Barguil battled to get through in 2015 and he returned to top form this season after a horrific training accident in the winter when a car collided with him and his Giant-Alpecin team-mates. Pinot’s overall challenge went west in last year’s cobbled stage but he fought back to win the most prestigious mountain stage, at l’Alpe d’Huez, while Bardet showed utter determination to get something, anything from last year’s race.
They have made tangible progress this season and are clearly hitting the Tour in form. Pinot has turned his time trialling around and comes to the Tour as French champion. In the final pre-Tour warm-up, the Dauphiné Libéré, he won a mountain stage and Bardet finished second to Chris Froome. Barguil managed third overall in the Tour of Switzerland, his first podium placing in a major stage race after showing his potential in 2013 with two mountain stage wins in the Tour of Spain.
“Pinot is third or fourth among the favourites for the Tour,” said the veteran L’Equipe cycling writer Philippe Bouvet. “That’s almost an injustice to Bardet, who was as good in the Dauphiné. The expectation is all around Pinot, which has a sound basis, because of the progress he’s made against the watch.
“I’d expect a lot of French riders to finish high up the standings. Barguil can finish easily in the top 10 and Pierre Rolland is targeting a mountain stage win, but that puts him in the mix too.”
“Expectations are high, because the progress has been obvious to everyone,” continues Bouvet. “Pinot is stronger mentally, but he needs to make the step from winning key mountain stages to winning stage races overall. You have to be realistic but he is credible. Winning the Tour for us is no longer impossible.”
When I wrote Hinault’s biography in 2014, it became apparent that the missing element in recent years was not talent but the ability of the best French cyclists to move beyond cult status among cycling fans and gain wider public awareness. That breakthrough may come in the next three weeks.
