A worthy winner, but wait for a French victory goes on
We enjoy our race’s global appeal, but a home win was much needed to lift our nation’s spirits
France came closer than ever in the last 34 years to win the race it invented. It did not happen but the frustration is in line with the country’s current hopes and fears. For the first time in the Tour de France’s 116-year-old history, a Colombian, Egan Bernal, looks set to win the most famous cycling race in the world – a striking confirmation of the globalisation of the sport. But the French, for whom the Tour is a piece of national heritage, would have loved this edition to be a little less global. Not out of chauvinism but because France feels it has been inviting others to the feast for a bit too long while having to be content with the crumbs.
It is indeed a genuine pride to see the rest of the world standing by the roadside and appreciating the beauty of our mountains, and variety of our landscapes while tasting the local specialities that make French cuisine so unique. We own the venue, but others top the bill. For the host nation, staging the Tour amounts to running the Royal Albert Hall with only foreign acts on the programme.
For once, it really seemed about to change. With three days to go before the finish in Paris today, a Frenchman, Julian Alaphilippe, was wearing the yellow jersey. Another Frenchman, Thibaut Pinot, had spiced the Tour with a spoonful of French climbing flair in the Pyrenees, winning one of the queen stages at the top of the mythical Tourmalet pass. Another local hero, Romain Bardet, was leading the king of the mountains classification and it looked possible to see three Frenchmen on the podium on the Champs-Elysees.
Those hopes were washed away in Friday’s 19th stage to Tignes by a landslide and the ongoing supremacy of Bernal’s Team Ineos, heading for their seventh Tour de France victory in eight years. Alaphilippe lost some two minutes to the Colombian in the hailstorms. Pinot did not even make it to the first climb of the day, betrayed by an ailing knee. As for Bardet, his polka-dot jersey was only saved by the gruelling weather conditions that stopped the race at the top of Col de l’Iseran.
As a result, the long wait for a French Tour de France winner will drag on for another year at least. Since Bernard Hinault last raised his arms on the famous Parisian avenue, the Tour story is no longer told in French. A Spaniard, Miguel Indurain, imposed
his rule on the race in the 1990s. The Festina doping scandal in 1998 depleted the ranks of the national cycling prospects as the EPO years were harming the image of the sport at home and abroad. Let us forget the seven-year reign of Lance Armstrong, followed by the ruthless domination of Team Sky.
Thirty-four years might not be as long as the 76 it took for Andy Murray to take over from Fred Perry as the last British Wimbledon champion. But in three decades, cycling changed radically and, for lack of home success, went out of favour in France, the country that invented it. The country’s sporting interests shifted towards football, fuelled by the 1998 World Cup victory, rugby union or even NBA basketball, seen by the younger generation as more glamorous and certainly more urban.
Unlike in Britain, where cycling is trendy and almost posh, cycling in France has always been a rural discipline, a small-town passion spurned by the wealthy populations of big cities such as Paris or Lyon.
Alaphilippe, Pinot and Bardet certainly rejuvenated the image of the sport. With his swashbuckling riding style, his Musketeer beard and moustache, his engaging smile and contagious joy of riding, Alaphilippe emerged as a new household figure in the 14 days he retained the yellow jersey in this edition. Pinot’s good looks, his elegance on the bike, his natural climbing abilities, also make him a crowd favourite. And the way he faltered once again in a Grand Tour, so close to the achievement of the national dream, might turn him into a beautiful loser, the kind of Romantic hero the French love so much. Bardet, who finished second overall in 2016 and third in 2017, went from bad to worse since the start in Brussels three weeks ago.
But the way he lifted the gauntlet by going for the polka-dot jersey – a French possession since 2017 with Warren Barguil and Alaphilippe – certainly won him new hearts.
Ironically, the three new faces of French cycling come from the same background as Hinault, the France profonde (deep France) so often ignored by Paris. Alaphilippe grew up in the industrial city of Montlucon.
Pinot lives on a farm in the Eastern department of Haute-Saone, in a valley with an unemployment rate nearing 35 per cent. Bardet was born in the rural town of Brioude, which hosted the ninth stage of this edition.
The France that bred the three of them is the same country that recently expressed its anxiety and sense of decline through the yellow vest movement. Their growing popularity probably stems from this proximity with the nation’s current hopes, frustrations and fears. French fans seem to wonder why, in spite of their potential, talent and hard work, success should remain elusive. There is certainly a growing feeling that France deserves to wear the Tour’s coveted yellow jersey at long last instead of a yellow vest.
For the host nation, staging the Tour amounts to running the Royal Albert Hall with only foreign acts