The Tour no longer seems like a pressing need for French cycling
The other day, seeing the good result of French cycling in the Giro, we talked about the good health that this country has in terms of bicycles even three decades after winning its last Tour.
In 1985, Bernard Hinault was crowned the last patriotic bastion on the Champs-Elysées and since then, if the French have occupied a place on the Parisian avenue, it has been on steps 2 and 3 of the podium.
When Hinault hung up his bike, coming second in 1986, there were well-founded hopes that the tricolor would fly sooner rather than later in Paris.
A generation led by Jeff Bernard, his talented companion in La Vie Claire, took over from the badger.
In fact Bernard would be third in 1987, another podium for the Gauls, surpassed by the Roche-Perico duel.
In these thirty years The one who came closest to winning was undoubtedly Laurent Fignondefeated in the final breath, by eight seconds, at the hands of Greg Lemond.
That was in 1989, the following year no Frenchman would be in the top 10 of the Tour, opening the toughest gap for this cycling since Hinault’s victory.
The next to step on the podium would be, twice, Richard Virenque, third in 1996 and second the following year, two editions marked by the dominance of Telekom.
In truth, Virenque never had any options between Riis and Ullrichalthough in honor of the truth we remember that cut in the Vosges in which the disagreement of going all out left the Tour clean for the German.
From 1997 to 2014 there was the most painful loop in French cycling in the Tour, without anyone of their own on the podium.
The photo that illustrates this article is precisely from the Tour ten years ago, when in the midst of illustrious casualties and abandonments, Jean Christophe Péraud and Thibaut Pinot managed to get on the podium.
Then they would come Romain Bardet’s drawers, second in 2016 and third the following year.
From then on, nothing more, zero, without results at the top of the general classification, although to be honest on this side of the Pyrenees we have not seen one of our own on that podium since 2015, with Alejandro Valverde.
That’s why I want to highlight a few French names that were not on the podium but shonein one way or another, for the «grandeur de la patrie».
Ahí van: Eric Boyer, Roman Pensec, Eric Caritoux, Charly Motter, Luc Leblanc, Thierry Claveyrolat, Pascal Lino, Laurent Jalabert, Christophe Rinero, Christophe Moreau, Cyril Dessel, Thomas Voeckler, Christophe Le Mevel, Guillaume Martin, Julian Alaphilippe y David Gaudu, entre otros.
They all achieved things, stages, yellow jerseys, positions very close to the podium… things that have kept French cycling alive in the very Tour de France that they have not won for 30 years.
ASO/Bruno Bade
2024-06-22 16:32:56
#number #obsesses #Cavendish #Tour
