He had been waiting for a victory since July 20, 2019 and a Tour de France finish at the top of the Tourmalet. Thibaut Pinot won the last stage of the Tour des Alpes this Friday, a 114.5 km loop around Lienz in Austria. And it was another Frenchman, Romain Bardet, who won the overall.
Thursday, Pinot had experienced a huge disappointment by being overtaken in the last hectometres by the Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez. This time, it was the Groupama-FDJ rider who made the Spaniard David de la Cruz cry, beaten in the sprint in the pouring rain.
“I was so disgusted yesterday [jeudi] that I had rabies, dropped the 31-year-old Franc-Comtois at the microphone of the chain The Team. This morning, even though it was raining, I had a knife between my teeth. I wanted her. I had great legs. I only had one thing in mind, to win. In 2018, Pinot became the second Habs to win the Tour des Alpes, after Luc Leblanc in 1997.
Bardet overturned the race
Four years later, Romain Bardet became the third. 8th in the last stage, the Auvergnat of DSM was barely two seconds behind the leader Pello Bilbao this Friday morning. At the end of the afternoon, the Spaniard from Bahrain Victorious was relegated to 4th place, 37 seconds behind, overtaken by Bardet but also the Australian Michael Storer (Groupama-FDJ) and the Dutchman Thymen Arensman (DSM).