He was a champion who didn’t want to be one. A potential winner of the Tour de France who would have won it but without the immense popularity that goes with it. Today, he is a former cyclist rooted in his corner of the Vosges, a little far from everything, who does not regret for a single moment the world of high-level cycling. Thibaut Pinot has stayed to live where he was born with his goats, his sheep and his donkeys.
Thibaut Pinot was a cyclist apart, a little lost in this world of extreme performance and cyclists who have become advertising objects. This did not prevent him from having a brilliant career but also from suffering terrible disappointments, as during this 2019 Tour de France which seemed within his reach except that a thigh injury, extremely rare among cyclists, made everything collapse.
The public loved Thibaut Pinot, very much, passionately. Like Jean-Michel Le Boulanger, president of the Étonnants voyageurs literary festival in Saint-Malo, former vice-president of the Brittany Region, novelist and essayist. To the point of writing him this Letter to Thibaut Pinot .
“You are like us”
Why was he enthusiastic about the guy? First of all, because of his exploits, such as his stage victories in the Tour de France in legendary places (L’Alpe d’Huez and the Tourmalet), before his failures that sent him to rock bottom. Pinot never did things by halves. He was incredibly generous in his efforts, to the point of sometimes putting his health at risk. That is admired and respected. He remained sincerely natural, not understanding all the fuss around him. That made Pinot such an endearing champion, and so different from the others.
Even though he never met the artist, Jean-Michel Le Boulanger wrote him this elegant letter, as if to thank him for everything. And also to try to understand “this funny runner”. Why then did he love Pinot so much? “You are like us, made of contradictions, of strengths and weaknesses, made of the simple desire for simple things,” the author wrote to him. This is a good start to an answer. And then, Jean-Michel Le Boulanger remains full of gratitude for all the emotions distributed by Pinot, “simple joys that we must cherish. »
Jean-Michel the Baker, Letter to Thibaut Pinot, Goater, 160 pages, 10 €.
