The Tour de France is the team’s raison d’être and David Gaudu has realistic ambitions of a podium place after finishing fourth overall this year, and yet it is Thibaut Pinot’s tilt at the Giro d’Italia that draws the eye when one looks ahead to Groupama-FDJ’s 2023 campaign.
How could it be any different? For more than a decade, the various glorious and sorrowful mysteries of Pinot’s career have provided more entertainment and, to borrow that joyless expression of the social media age, provoked more engagement than the rest of the Groupama-FDJ roster combined.
Pinot may long for a quiet life in the countryside around Mélisey, but, for as long as he rides a bike, he is doomed to stardom. In his younger and more vulnerable years, it must have at times felt like an unconscionable burden. In the seasons since his traumatic late abandon at the 2019 Tour de France, the previous extremes of expectation have been tempered by repeated injury.
Adulation for Pinot, in France and elsewhere, remains undimmed, but nowadays it is expressed more in hesitant hope than in ardent anticipation. Pinot’s 2020 Tour was ruined by a crash on the opening stage and he then abandoned that season's Vuelta a España with the same back injury that would all but wipe out his 2021 campaign.
The Frenchman returned to the Tour this past season, but he was limited by a bout of COVID-19 just before the race, placing 14th overall. He raced the Vuelta in search of stage victories, but on his best days in the mountains, he had the misfortune to come up against Jay Vine (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl).
For 2023, Pinot returns to his favourite Grand Tour, and like his compatriots Stendhal or Michel Platini, his greatest moments of creative inspiration have tended to come south of the Alps.
His early love for Italy and all things Italian was reflected in the nickname of ‘Pinotto’ he jokingly bestowed upon himself when he raced at the Verbania European Championships with the French under-23 team and in the tattoo – ‘Solo la vittoria è bella’ – on his right arm. As a professional, Pinot had early success at the Settimana Lombarda and he later won Il Lombardia, Milano-Torino and the Tour of the Alps.
In his two Giro appearances to date, meanwhile, Pinot delivered two of the finest displays of his entire career. On his debut in 2017, he won the tough penultimate stage to Asiago and just missed out on the podium after being part of a four-way tussle for the maglia rosa that endured into the concluding time trial.
Twelve months later, Pinot was better again, battling gamely even when Chris Froome turned logic on its head on the Colle delle Finestre. This time, he looked destined for a podium spot only to fall ill on the penultimate stage. Rather than stand alongside Froome and Tom Dumoulin on the podium in Rome, Pinot spent the final stage of the 2018 Giro in a hospital bed in Aosta, where he was treated for pneumonia.
The cost of dreaming in this sport is often unsustainable, and yet Pinot – despite occasional hints at retirement – keeps coming back for more. That almost quixotic resilience was captured in microcosm on this year’s Tour of the Alps, where Pinot was reduced to tears by his defeat at the hands of Miguel Ángel López (Astana Qazaqstan) on the Grossglockner only to win in Lienz a day later.
“It’s the two sides of the same mountain. To win today, he had to lose yesterday. His win today had depth because he lost yesterday,” the journalist Pierre Carrey said in the L’Équipe TV studio that afternoon. “With Pinot, in contrast with what his tattoo says, his defeats are often more beautiful than his victories.”
Therein lies the enduring appeal of Pinot, who himself knows that, at the age of 32, beating Evenepoel, Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) et al on a Giro route with 70km of time trialling is most unlikely. But that’s the whole point of the endeavour. “I have just one clear goal, to beat the best in the mountain stages,” said Pinot, who will build towards May by riding Étoile de Bessèges, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie.
Gaudu has made a point of explicitly targeting a podium place at the Tour and in July, Groupama-FDJ – and French cycling at large – will hope that he can confirm the obvious potential he showed en route to fourth overall at this year’s race. In May, however, Pinot races for something that goes beyond the result and that's somehow more compelling.
Or, as Carrey put it: “In the end, we’re not expecting much more from him, whether he wins or loses. We expect him to provide emotions. We don’t know what he’s racing after, it’s a big question. Does he know it himself? But he’s there, he’s got nothing to prove, he’s on another level. He speaks to our lives as well.”
Other storylines to follow in 2023
- The aforementioned Gaudu was more than satisfied with the mountain-heavy, time trial-light Tour route that was presented in October, but Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) look to be in a league of their own, while Ineos Grenadiers ought to be strengthened by the return of Egan Bernal. The step from fourth place to a podium finish is a hefty one for the Breton.
- Arnaud Démare was diplomatic when questioned about it at the Giro presentation, but he couldn’t hide his disappointment at how Groupama-FDJ had allowed so many key parts of his lead-out train to leave during the off-season. It hardly augured well for Démare’s prospects of returning to the Tour after missing out in 2022, but he will look to win early and often in 2023 to make his case. After finishing last season with a fine victory at Paris-Tours, Démare has eyes on recapturing Milan-San Remo in March.
- Stefan Küng’s three-year contract extension was an important piece of business for Groupama-FDJ given the Swiss rider’s ability across so many terrains and his willingness to play a supporting role when required. On the cobbles, however, Küng is the team’s leading light, after finally marrying consistency to his obvious aptitude for the pavé. Third place at Paris-Roubaix was the culmination of a 2022 Spring where he was always in the mix, and a breakthrough victory is a distinct possibility this season.
- It helps, of course, that Küng is part of a Classics squad of considerable depth. Valentin Madouas was third at the Tour of Flanders and Jake Stewart’s talent is obvious, while Démare is set to return to the cobbles for Opening Weekend at least after a recent hiatus. Expect the team to have numbers in cobbled finales from February to April.
