Sport Tour de France
By Tom Cary
Mark Cavendish will return to com-
petition in the five-day Adriatica
Ionica race tomorrow.
As the finale to the most thrilling
Tour de France plays out this week-
end, the 30-time stage winner –
who was controversially left out of
Dimension Data’s line-up – will be
competing alongside Mark Ren-
shaw and Bernie Eisel in Italy’sAdriatica Ionica, which forms part
of the UCI Europe Tour. Its inaugu-
ral edition last year was won by
Ivan Sosa, then riding for Androni
Giocattoli-Sidermec and now of
Team Ineos.
Cavendish’s form is unclear but
he will clearly be hoping to prove a
point. After two injury-hit seasons
spent battling Epstein-Barr virus,
the 34-year-old returned to compe-
tition this year and said he felt he
was peaking in time for the Tour.Cavendish returns in Italy
Signing up: Thibaut Pinot meets fans
during stage 16 of the Tour de FranceFrench dare to dream
that a home hero can
end 34 years of hurt
R
aymond Poulidor was
sitting in the LCL
sponsors’ tent in the
race village at the start
in Nimes yesterday,
sheltering from the
ferocious 40C temperatures
outside, when Thibaut Pinot, the
man of the hour, pedalled gently
past on his bike, heading back to
his team bus. Poulidor nodded
approvingly at the FDJ rider, then
glanced back at his copy of
L’Equipe. “Le Fol Espoir,”
proclaimed the newspaper,
alongside a picture of Pinot and
Julian Alaphilippe, the darlings of
French cycling; the two men
charged with bringing glory back
to France. Crazy hope.
What would it mean for this
country to win the Tour de France
after a hiatus of 34 years? France is,
unsurprisingly, the most successful
nation in the history of the race,
having won La Grande Boucle 36
times since the first edition in 1903,
double the number of their nearest
rival, Belgium. But these have been
lean years. Bernard Hinault’s fifth
and final win in 1985 was so long
ago that a generation has grown up
without knowing home success in
an event which is intertwined in
the national identity.
During that time, the Tour has
been hijacked by a succession of
doping scandals. Festina, US Postal,
Floyd Landis, Lance Armstrong –
the list is endless. More recently,
Team Sky have held sway with
their big budgets and big buses,
winning six of the past seven
editions and stomping all over the
romance of the sport with their
marginal gains. Which is why this
race has been so thrilling. Chaos,
rather than control, has prevailed.
Team Sky – now Ineos – are still
very much in the mix. Indeed,
Geraint Thomas remains the
“virtual maillot jaune”, with
Alaphilippe still expected to fall
away in the Alps. But the manner
in which the dashing young
Frenchman has ridden, all panache
and attacking verve, has electrified
the race. And even as he tires,
Pinot, a keen farmer who prefers to
tend his sheep and goats during
the winter than retreat to boring
solitude in Majorca or Tenerife,
looks ready to replace him. Pinot’s
win on the Tourmalet on Saturday
had 50 per cent of the country’s
television audience share, a figure
that rose to 60 per cent by the end
of the stage, when he was mobbed
by thousands of fans, includingthe president of the republic,
Emmanuel Macron.
Clement Guillou, a reporter for
Le Monde, said excitement was not
quite at the levels of last summer,
when Les Bleus stormed to World
Cup glory in Russia, but not far off.
“It’s different,” he said. “I think it
felt more inclusive last summer,
the excitement building with every
round. [But] nobody expected a
French rider to win the Tour this
year. You have to remember that
there has been a lot of disaffection
with the Tour over the last 20 years
because of the doping scandals. I
know you see [convicted doper
Richard] Virenque on TV but I
think French people care about the
doping controversies. Now,
however, the television viewing
figures have been huge.”
If Alaphilippe hangs on this
week, or Pinot carries his Pyrenean
form to the Alps and rises fromfourth on GC to take the maillot
jaune, the celebrations are going to
be wild. Already L’Equipe is
churning out multiple spreads
every day – there were six
yesterday, with the first 13 pages of
the newspaper all devoted to
cycling – as Tour fever grips.
The added charm is that Pinot
rides for a French team run by a
man so French he might as well
have been born wearing a beret.
Marc Madiot’s reaction to Pinot’s
victory on the Tourmalet – an
explosion of arms and grunts as he
watched the final metres unfold –
was wonderful. And a bit scary. A
video of his celebration has
deservedly gone viral. Madiot
stuck to his guns during the Sky
era, refusing to subscribe to the
analytical approach they
pioneered. Now he is, rightly,
enjoying his moment in the sun.
“Teams like Ineos, like Jumbo-
Visma ... they are about ‘managing
efforts,’ ” he enjoyed telling a group
of English reporters on Monday’s
rest day. “Don’t lose too much time
on the Tourmalet. Take 10 seconds
here, 15 seconds there ... For us,
winning on the Tourmalet or Alpe
d’Huez is different. We’re a Latin
team. Latin teams are offensive
whereas Anglo-Saxon teams are
more about managing efforts,
measuring, calculating ...”
Madiot added that Pinot – a man
after his own heart – could not
stand to train in solitude in
Tenerife, or ride by numbers.
“Thibaut is more about emotion
than action,” he said. “If I put him
in a straitjacket, it’s not going to
work.” Philippe Mauduit, FDJ’s
sporting director, agreed,
explaining that Pinot preferred to
rent an apartment and train in
Tignes, surrounded by friends. “He
feels better there,” he said.
Back in the village, Poulidor
could hardly dare to dream.
“Nothing is done yet,” he warned.
“Today and tomorrow, with this
heat, is going to sap a lot of riders.”
A man known as “The Eternal
Second” because he missed out on
Tour glory so many times –
famously never once wearing the
maillot jaune – there was
something poignant about
Poulidor worrying for Pinot.
More than anyone, though,
“Pou-Pou” should know the French
value romance above success. Sixty
years later it is he, rather than his
rival, the five-time champion
Jacques Anquetil, who is cemented
in the French public’s affection. A
French victory on Sunday, after 34
years of hurt, would be epic.
Victory by one of French cycling’s
new romantics? Le Fol Espoir.Julian Alaphilippe and
Thibaut Pinot are lifting
hosts’ Tour hopes, says
Tom Cary in Nimes
1985 and all that The
last French champion
How hosts have been starved of Tour success
Bernard
Hinault was
coming to the
end by 1985,
having ruled
the peloton
with an iron
fist for nearly a
decade.
But at 30, Le
Blaireau (The
Badger) was
under threat
from a new
generation.
Heading into
the Tour,
where he was
attempting to
draw level
with Eddy
Merckx and
Jacques
Anquetil on
five wins,
Hinault’s team,
La Vie Claire,
figured the
best course of
action would
be to recruitone of those
threats. Greg
LeMond was
signed, with
Hinault
famously
promising that
in return for
his help he
would support
LeMond the
following year.
Hinault won
and again said
he would help
LeMond. The
1986 Tour was
hugely
controversial,
with Hinault
accused of
reneging as he
repeatedly
attacked
LeMond. But
the American
won, and
France have
not had
another Tour
winner since.1977 B. Thevenet
1978 B. Hinault
1979 B. Hinault
1980 J. Zoetemelk
1981 B. Hinault1982 B. Hinault
1983 L. Fignon
1984 L. Fignon
1985 B. Hinault
1986 G. LeMond1987 S. Roche
1988 P. Delgado
1989 G. LeMond
1990 G. LeMond
1991 M. IndurainEight of the nine Tour
de France winners up
to 1985 were French –
but there have been
none since.Race leader: Julian Alaphilippe, in the
yellow jersey, crosses the Pont du Gard
during the Tour de France yesterday10 *** Wednesday 24 July 2019 The Daily Telegraph
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