At the beginning of your book, we read an anecdote about you as a child who freed chickens and rabbits from cages despite your dad’s strong remonstrances. Is it the same freedom that brought you to cycling?
Bernard Hinault : A little, and then when you’re young, you’re a little stupid. It was fun to see them run, but then we had to catch up with them, but it was fun for us. It was a game, but it was perhaps the start of the competition because I wasn’t alone, there were also my brothers who were there. I went to school by bike, it was my hobby, my pleasure. It was competition with the whole village because there were 40 children. Everyone got together and things went in all directions. The taste for competition came like that.
In the book, you also tell how your first professional manager, a certain Jean Stablinski, pressed “runners like lemons“…
B.H. : I had a temperament, I wanted to win and he would have wanted me to do everything. From the start, I did almost all the races in Belgium. First of all, it wasn’t my place, bad weather. I wasn’t feeling too good. And then, he insisted that I go to the Dauphiné, I did it. And behind he said to me, “you come to the Tour de France to do the first six or eight days to make a mess.” I replied that if I came, I wouldn’t make a mess and I would see it through to the end. I didn’t go.
How did you get into the peloton in the 70s? Today, some young people are criticized for not respecting their elders. We have the impression that you, for example, when you arrived, you wanted to take your place…
B.H. : Yes, I arrived in the team and I was immediately told about Eddy Merckx. I said, “Merckx, he’s like me, he has two arms, two legs, a head, he uses it, me too. I don’t see why I would put myself down.“Today, maybe it’s different, a lot of things have changed. Before, when there was danger on the road, we waved to the others behind. Now we almost have the impression that we are said: “if ten fall, that’s ten less in the race“.
There is a young Frenchman who is shining this season: Lenny Martinez. How do you judge it?
B.H. : He did some great numbers! But in the high mountains, he still has some difficulties. I think it’s made for one-day races. It packs a punch that shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s a bit of the Julian Alaphilippe style. He is capable of doing great numbers. For me, he is a rider of difficult classics, like Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Flèche Wallonne, the Tour de Lombardie…
A fatal attack: how Martinez scored his second victory of the season
On the big tours, he can get by and win stages. But if he is placed in general, he will never be able to. So, you have to think: isn’t it better not to say to yourself, I don’t give a damn about the general classification and then I take two steps? And on occasion, I win the mountain classification.
A reasoning that could also be applied to David Gaudu…
B.H. : In ten years, will we still be talking about his 4th place? Whereas if he takes the polka dot jersey, having won perhaps one, two or three mountain stages, the beautiful mountain stages that we have, everyone will remember them.
Which French rider made you believe the most in another victory in the Tour de France?
B.H. : I think it was Romain Bardet when he finished 2nd. Because he dared to attack at a time when it was rainy, dangerous. He tried: either I win or I lose. And if Froome, who falls that day, doesn’t get back on his bike, who wins? Him. He was the closest to a Tour victory.
Before the Tour de France, and in the absence of Julian Alaphilippe, the French landscape is a little sad in 2024. How to thrill the public on this Tour?
B.H. : Our riders must win stages, so that they don’t have any questions about the general classification. Say, “we are going to win stages and we are going to show that we exist.” As a sports director, that’s what I would do. We don’t calculate. There are very good stages to win, numbers to achieve.
Next up are the Paris Olympic Games…
B.H. : If I were a runner, I would have loved to participate! Because it’s my home, it’s in France. And then, the route is quite difficult. (Julian) Alaphilippe, I think that if he is well prepared, and even the 4 riders that we will have, all have a chance of winning. You shouldn’t put everything on a runner, unless he is sure of his shot. But if he is not sure, in that case, we play all the runners, everyone. And we disturb the opponents a little, who will think that there is only Alaphilippe.
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In our era, there are two great grand tour riders: Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard. Which one do you feel closest to? There is one…
B.H. : (he cuts) Pogacar! It can’t be otherwise. He wins in the spring, he wins in the summer, he wins at the end of the season. It’s the closest to us compared to anything we’ve been able to do, whether it’s (Eddy) Merckx, or other riders. It’s the one who is closest to us, honestly. He attacks, he has fun, he is happy. It is exciting. I found pleasure in looking at the bike from the moment it arrived. And there are other runners who are there, young people, many young people who don’t ask questions. When they feel there is an opportunity to go for victory, Boom!
Pogacar is more playful than Vingegaard. It has nothing to do with it, nothing. And then what’s more, that smile he has… Once he made me happy in an interview by saying “I have fun, I enjoy myself, I play“. It’s grandiose for me! It’s what I’ve always experienced. Because sport is not a job. It’s a game, pleasure, enjoyment. When we let go of the others, we say to ourselves: “Well, one more less.”
Have you been bored with cycling for a while?
B.H. : There was a period when we had a big team that muzzled everyone. We arrived at the foot of the pass, they all started rolling. And then, the leader left with one kilometer to go. That was a bit boring. What are we doing ? We came for the last ten kilometers because we still wanted to see a bit of the sprint but it wasn’t exciting. And since there is this younger generation, it is much better. I feel it with everyone I meet. People talk to me about it a lot.
We were talking about Tadej Pogacar, he is going to attempt the Giro-Tour double that you have achieved twice…
B.H. : But he will do it. He is going to do it !
Do you see it as a favorite?
B.H. : Widely. Who will be in front? Vingegaard injured? Not injured, but coming back from an injury… We have to see what happened last year. Pogacar breaks his wrist during Liège-Bastogne-Liège. He fights like a rag for a while and he has two days off. And when we see Pogacar’s performance at the Tour of Italy, it’s incredible. I think he’s going to be part of the big club.
Fritsch: “Yates is number 1 behind the monsters Pogacar and Vingegaard”
Who do you put in the big club?
B.H. : (he smiles)… Eddy Merckx, me, Jacques Anquetil… At his age, Pogacar already has an extraordinary track record!
Do you think he can win all five Monuments?
B.H. : He can win whenever he wants! And working for the classics would not be to the detriment of the Tour de France. We have the qualities, or we don’t. Above all, he has phenomenal power. I was at the Tour de l’Avenir which he won (in 2018). And then the Tour de France 2020 of course.
Maybe there was a mistake from Roglic in the Pyrenees when he let him come back. I think he didn’t think that Pogacar was going to take his pants down in La Planche des Belles Filles. There is one who gives a great performance and the other who completely collapses. It’s a bit like what happened with Laurent Fignon and Greg Lemond on the Champs-Elysées in 1989. There is one who takes second by second and the other, mentally, who loses second by second. And it goes quickly.
Would you have liked to race against this new generation?
B.H. : Of course ! But I also didn’t have the chance to race in the era of the great Merckx. That would have been great. We would have had a good beating.
You still raced against him a bit, you even beat him at the Critérium du Dauphiné 1977. Was that important to you?
B.H. : Important, no. It’s part of the race. And he helped me because when I fell in the Col de Porte the next day, everyone attacked me. I was the young one, they weren’t going to give me any favors. At one point, he too was let go. He was waiting for me. He was telling me “hang on, hang on!“He came back to get me. And that day, he made me win the Dauphiné. And when Merckx tells you to hold on, we hold on to the limit. He was my idol, I had no no right to disappoint him.
Hinault: “It would have been great to race against the great Merckx, to give yourself a good beating”
