As the final countdown towards his retirement continues, Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) says that he still has to get used to the idea that he is about to start his final Tour de France.
“I haven’t really realised my last Grand Tour, not even when I was packing my suitcase,’ Pinot told reports in a press confidence on Thursday.
“People remind me but nothing changes. Perhaps the only thing that has changes is that I’m a little more motivated than other Tours I have started.”
For Pinot, 33, the Tour de France began in 2012 when he took a dramatic solo win at Porrentruy and a tenth place overall. But he said that his best - and worst - Tour remained 2019, when he conquered the Tourmalet and had his best shot at winning, only for it all to go spectacularly wrong thanks to a leg injury in the Alps.
This year, Pinot says his main pre-race goal was to stay as long as possible in support of Groupama-FDJ's GC contender, David Gaudu and then take it from there.
"It's up to me to help David as much as possible, but also up to me to seize the chances I have," he said. "It's up to us to make sure it all goes right."
As for his GC chances, Pinot said he wasn't really thinking too hard about that question. Rather than put himself under pressure, his goal seems to be take things day by day, back Gaudu as much as possible, and see where that takes him.
"There are two very hard stages early on," Pinot point out, "so we'll see what happens there. In any case my overall aim is to be with David for as long as possible and that means being with the rest of the top favourites right up to the finish. So we'll see where I am at the end of each week."
If there is one stage where Pinot is quietly determined to shine on his own account, that would be the day before the race reaches Paris. Stage 20 in the Vosges, the mountain range where he grew up and still lives, is the terrain that Pinot knows like the back of his hand.
"It'll be my last mountain stage in the Tour, very special for everybody and even more so for me because it's my training grounds," he said.
"The stage will be short and hard, so for sure it'll be spectacular."
With nine Tours to his name already, it was perhaps forgivable that Pinot initially wrongly identified his best and worst Grand Boucle as happening in 2020, before Marc Madiot, his sports director throughout his entire career, gently corrected him and pointed out that his rollercoaster Tour had been in 2019.
"2019 was when I was at my most consistent, I had that victory on the Tourmalet, it was the height of my career. I was aiming to win the Tour and was racing at a really high level," Pinot said.
"But also 2019 was the worst: that thigh injury I got in the third week, that kept me off at least finishing on the podium."
Madiot was in the team car when Pinot won in Porrentruy in 2012 memorably hammering the side of the car door and bellowing into the race radio to spur Pinot on. Madiot was there again when Pinot had his rollercoaster Tour in 2019 and Madiot was there at every other Pinot-Tour in between. With the curtain about to fall on Pinot's Tours for good, Madiot was asked by journalists how important it was to him to be in on the final act.
"It's special, particularly if you look at how mixed Thibaut's experiences have been in the Tour. The year when I thought it least likely he'd want to do the Tour, he does the Giro and then decides to head for here."
"But we've evaluated his conditions and I'm feel pretty confident he could do the best Tour of his career," Madiot concluded.
With memories of his King of the Mountains title in the Giro d'Italia still fresh and after helping FDJ teammate Valentin Madouas win the Nationals, one thing Pinot is constantly questioned about is if he would be prepared to rethink his decision to end his career this season.
But France's most charismatic climbing star of recent years was adamant that was not going to be the case.
"It's definitive, the only thing might have changed it would have been if I'd won the Nationals. But the decision is taken and I really wanted to avoid doing one too many seasons, and be sure I could finish my career on a high. So I will go all the way through to Il Lombardia" - his only Monument victory to date, taken in 2018 - "and that'll be it."
