Tour of the Alps: "I had a knife between my teeth", Pinot offers the stage, Bardet takes the general

As spring progresses, climbers become green again.

And Thibaut Pinot went from tears to laughter in 24 hours.

A few thousand days after his triumph at the top of the Tourmalet in the 2019 Tour de France, Pinot, poisoned by back problems for nearly three years, finally found the flavor of victory this Friday.

"I was so disgusted yesterday," said Pinot after the race on the L'Equipe channel in reference to the victory that the Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez blew to him in extremis, after he had escaped alone for some 80 kilometers. , Thursday.

A disappointment that had tested the runner from Mélisey (Haute-Saône) to tears, as the frustration was great.

“Today, I had rabies, he continues, shaggy beard, glasses abandoned on the way.

This morning, I had the knife between my teeth, even though it was raining.

I wanted that one.

I had the legs.

It's a lot of relief.

Yesterday, it may have done me good to see that I was able to win races.

But today was not easy.

I did everything with a broken spoke, the gears wouldn't change until the last climb.

It was stressful during the whole stage...”

WHAT A VICTORY FOR THIBAUT PINOT!

💪🇫🇷 #lequipeVELO #TotA pic.twitter.com/BEHWFtjVPY

— the chain L'Équipe (@lachainelequipe) April 22, 2022

The Franc-Comtois savors his resurrection all the more: “It's my specialty, I bounce back very quickly.

I feed on my failures.

I was transcended.

I was one of the breakaways this morning.

Nothing could happen to me on such a stage.

Whether I finished alone, whether it was a sprint, the important thing was to win, even if I wasn't confident in the rain, 10 days after crashing at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

Now, we will stop talking to me about these more than 1000 days without a win and the last one at the Tourmalet..."

The general classification for Romain Bardet

It was precisely in the sprint, slightly uphill, that the Franc-Comtois made David De La Cruz (Astana) listen to reason, after having seriously tested the Spaniard in the three kilometers of the last climb of Stronach, at 10 terminals of the goal.

Ten minutes after Pinot, Romain Bardet's small group crossed the line.

The Auvergnat, who was 2 seconds behind Peio Bilbao overall, took the final victory after the Spaniard from Bahrain lost contact in Stronach and was finally ejected from the final podium.

At the cost of a great week of racing, Bardet signs his 2nd victory in a stage race (after a success on the Tour de l'Ain in 2013).

On the winners of the Tour of the Alps, formerly Tour of Trentin, he is only the 3rd Tricolor to register his name after Luc Leblanc (1997) and... Thibaut Pinot (2018).