"I wanted to finish early enough to still be young in real life" - Thibaut Pinot reflects on career highs and why it's the right time to call it quits
Cycling
One of the biggest stars of modern French cycling, Thibaut Pinot's final race is now fast approaching. With his career coming to an end at Il Lombardia, Pinot has been reflecting on his career highs and why he feels it's the right time to move on from professional cycling.
"I didn't want to be the oldest on the team since I'm often the oldest in the squad," Pinot admits, explaining to Eurosport why his somewhat surprising decision to retire at the end of the season has been the right call. "Of course it's young, I'm only 33. In truth, I have a little fear of getting old so I wanted to finish early enough to still be young in real life."
As mentioned, the curtain will come down on Pinot's career at the upcoming Il Lombardia, a race where one of his biggest career wins came back in 2018. “My best memory will remain my victory in Lombardy. think it's my greatest victory, it's my Monument, it was also Jérémy Roy's last race and I won it for him," the Groupama - FDJ man recalls. "It's really my most beautiful victory, the most constructed victory, the one where I assume my status as leader, the status of favourite. What has always made me proud of this victory is beating Vincenzo Nibali at his home."
Pinot has been relatively quiet since the Tour de France, but this has all been part of his plan to bring a positive conclusion to his career. “I worked in August and September to be good at the races that I prefer, this Italian period,” continues Pinot. "I want to make the most of this Tour of Lombardy, I know that there will be a lot of people, it will put a little pressure on me too because I will be a little in the centre of attention and that's not what I like the most. So I hope that I'm still going to enjoy my race."
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- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
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- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
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- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024