After a Tour on TV, Pinot now looms large in the picture
BRIOUDE, France — Like a lost love, the Tour de France gains in value for riders who can’t race in it.
That was the lesson Thibaut Pinot learned last year when the French rider, who’d fallen sick at the Giro d’Italia in May, then missed the Tour and watched on TV as others wrote history at cycling’s showcase race.
“It was no fun,” he recalls. “I realized how important the Tour is for a French rider.” This year, he’s making amends.
With the race shifting its attention to the toughest climbs to come in the Pyrenees and Alps, Pinot is not only lighting up TV screens but also is most definitely in the picture among top pretenders for overall victory in Paris on July 28.
With no Tour winner for French fans to cheer for since Bernard Hinault in 1985, Pinot is third overall and heads into the Tour’s second week looking like France’s most credible contender in years.
Unlike Julian Alaphilippe, the punchy, exciting yellow-jersey wearer from France who wowed in week one but who is dreading the high-altitude ascents, Pinot is looking forward to them.
“That’s where I get the most pleasure,” he said Sunday before the start of Stage 9, a hilly trek through the Massif Central mountains won by South African Daryl Impey, while Pinot and all the other top racers took it easy behind, saving their strength.
Pinot excelled with the Groupama-FDJ squad in the Stage 2 team time trial, losing just 12 seconds to defending champion Geraint Thomas and his teammates at Ineos. That performance raised French hopes that Pinot might also be able to also limit damage in the individual time trial, upcoming on Stage 13 and where former track specialist Thomas should excel. “Thomas will take back time,” Pinot said. But it is anyone’s guess as to which of them will get the upper hand on the climbs. On Stage 6, the first mountain stage, Thomas couldn’t seriously distance Pinot, who rode in just two seconds behind him.
On Stage 8, it was Pinot who gained time, surging ahead with Alaphilippe and frustrating Thomas, who crashed and couldn’t catch back up with them.
The gap between them didn’t change on Sunday’s Stage 9. Top contenders took a breather, allowing Impey and 14 other riders who aren’t threats for the overall title to build up the biggest lead of any breakaway this year, as they raced off far ahead for the stage win. Thomas is still
ended the drama in the Quad Cities.
“You can’t give up shots to the rest of the field,” Frittelli said. “When I saw the leaderboard, putting downhill, I thought, if I make this (I’ll get) a little bit of breathing room with Russell in the clubhouse already.”
Frittelli, who made the winning putt for the University of Texas in the 2012 NCAA Tournament, became the second player from that Longhorns team to win at TPC Deere Run. Jordan Spieth won in 2013 and 2015.