This will be Bernard Hinault’s last Tour de France, reports The Guardian.
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.”