Thibaut Pinot

Thibaut Pinot
	Thibaut Pinot (2014)
To person
Date of birth	29th May 1990 (age 30)
nation	France
discipline	Street
Driver type	Mountain riders
To the team
Current team	Groupama-FDJ
function	driver
Team (s)
2010–	Groupama-FDJ
Most important successes
	Lombardy Tour 2018; three stages Tour de France ; a stage of the Giro d'Italia ; two stages Vuelta a España ;

Thibaut Pinot (born May 29, 1990 in Mélisey ) is a French cyclist .

Career

Thibaut Pinot won a stage of the Tour des Pays de Savoie in the 2009 season , where he finished eighth overall. At the Giro della Valle d'Aosta he started with the national team and won the overall standings there. In the 2010 season, Pinot joined the French ProTeam Française des Jeux as the youngest rider in the UCI Pro Tour .

In 2012 he won the eighth stage of the Tour , at his first tour start and as the youngest driver in the field. According to his own statements, the strong climber is a weak downhill skier, which affects his results in the mountains: He has a phobia of speed like others have of snakes and spiders. Due to this downhill weakness, he lost a lot of time in the 2013 Tour de France in the Pyrenees and gave up the race after the stage to Mont Ventoux.

Through targeted training, Pinot fought his phobia and improved his downhill skills. Among other things, he got into a racing car at Le Mans and took part in a snow rally in the Alps. As a result, Pinot lost less time on the downhill runs of the Tour de France 2014 , won the white jersey and came third in the overall standings.

After crashes and defects in the first week of the 2015 Tour de France , Pinot didn't play a role in the overall standings early on and concentrated on stage wins. On the 20th stage to L'Alpe d'Huez , he finally managed to win a stage as a soloist. He finished the tour in 16th place.

In the 2016 season, Pinot showed improved time trial qualities. He won the time trials of the Critérium International , where he was overall winner, and the Tour de Romandie , where he was second overall, as well as the French time trial championships. In the subsequent Tour de France , however, he lost a lot of time in the first week and on the first mountain stage . After an attack on the second mountain stage , he won the dotted jersey for three days , but did not take part in the 13th stage due to bronchitis .

At the Giro d'Italia 2017 , he won the last mountain stage in the sprint of a five-man breakaway group and finished fourth in the overall standings. In the subsequent Tour de France , he gave up in the course of the 17th stage .

After Pinot won the Tour of the Alps in 2018 , he started at the Giro d'Italia 2018 . After the 19th stage he was in third place in the overall standings, but fell far behind due to pneumonia on the 20th stage and did not start the following final stage.

At the Tour de France 2019 he was fifth overall after the 18th stage . During the 19th stage he had to give up the race due to an injury.