End clap for Arthur Vichot.
For almost two years, the double champion of France (2013, 2016) had suffered from a mysterious virus that weakened his body and prevented him from producing repeated efforts, even in training.
"I don't know what it is and it becomes complicated to live with," Vichot told us last June.
It started in Canada after the Grand Prix de Québec in September 2018 where I finished 7th.
Then I started to get very tired.
And it never stopped.
One day, I can cycle for five hours, but the next day, I'm a living dead on my couch.
I don't even have the strength to vacuum.
"
If he had finished 15th in the Etoile de Bessèges in February, he quickly plunged back.
But he still had hope.
At the end of his contract at B&B Hotels, the runner from Besançon, one of Thibaut Pinot's relatives, had to resolve to make a decision carefully considered for several months: to stop his career.
Symbolically, he chose the day of his 32nd birthday to announce it this Thursday afternoon via a message on social networks with a photo of his second title of champion of France in 2016, near his home, in Vesoul.
🏁
After 11 years in the professional peloton, it's finally time for me to turn the page.
It is with a light mind that I choose to store my bike;
with memories, meetings and exceptional emotions that will stay forever! 🚳 ... pic.twitter.com/8N8oPR2zSX
- arthur vichot (@ArthurVichot) November 26, 2020
“After 11 years in the professional peloton, it's finally time for me to turn the page,” he writes.
It is the light spirit that I choose to store my bike, with memories, meetings and exceptional emotions that will remain forever.
I feel privileged and thank very much cycling, sport in general as well as all the caring and positive people who have allowed me to become the athlete and the man that I am.
From now on, a new life awaits me, with other projects and other objectives ... Good luck to my future ex-friends.
"
Arthur Vichot will have spent eleven years in the professional peloton, from 2010 to 2018 at the FDJ and since 2019 at B&B Hotels.
Two seasons truncated after having built a nice track record.
The pretty tribute of Julien Pinot
In addition to his two blue-white-red jerseys, he notably won a stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné (2012), a stage of Paris-Nice (2014), the Tour du Doubs (2011), the GP La Marseillaise (2017), the Tour de l'Ain (2018), three Tour du Haut Var (2013, 2016, 2017), the loops of South Ardèche (2011).
"Because having accompanied and tried to tame the honest and resilient champion that you are will have me passionate, motivated, questioned, made me vibrate, progress, laugh, cry, love, BRAVO and THANKS", tweeted his friend Julien Pinot , Thibaut's brother and trainer at Groupama-FDJ.
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Arthur Vichot announced that he had "lots of projects even if it remains vague with the ambient atmosphere".
While specifying that it "will not be in the bike".